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A 


NEW SAMARITAN, 


THE STORY OF AN HEIRESS. 


BY 

JULIA MacNAIR WRIGHT. 

AUTHOR OF "ADAM’S DAUGHTERS,” " MR. GROSVENOR’S DAUGH- 
TER,” " ON A SNOW-BOUND TRAIN,” ETC. 



“ Salute tl^e beloVed Persia, Which labored much in 
the Lord.” 




COPYRIGHT, 1895, 
AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY. 




Gontrnts 




CHAPTER I. 

Possessing All Things page 5 

CHAPTER II. 

Having Nothing 18 

CHAPTER III. 

The Plan of a Campaign 31 

CHAPTER IV. 

“Wo, Go, Lo" 44 

CHAPTER V. 

Serena Bowles’ Experiences 59 

CHAPTER VI. 

Tommy Tibbets and Others 73 

CHAPTER VII. 

Miss Rebecca’s Prospers 86 

CHAPTER VIII. 

A Bible Nurse 104 

CHAPTER IX. 

In Humble Duties 115 

CHAPTER X. 

The Dew and the Showers 129 

CHAPTER XI. 

The Living Stream 143 


4 


CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Reaping and Gleaning 157 

CHAPTER XIII. 

To All its Season 172 

CHAPTER XIV. 

The Rule of Life 186 

CHAPTER XV. 

A Life-Saving Station 200 

CHAPTER XVI. 

“ And Serena Saw a GreatLight ” 214 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Endurance 227 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

The Accepted Lot 241 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Josie, Bessie and Others 255 

CHAPTER XX. 

The Daughters of Sorrow 270 

CHAPTER XXL 

Led into Hope 283 

CHAPTER XXII. 

The Crime of Innocence 294 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

The Mothers of Criminals 304 


fl NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER I. 

POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 

“ The stream that stagnates in its bed 
Turns no man’s wheel: as well be dead 
As numb and rigid.” 

One — two — three — four — five — The strokes from the 
great bell of St. Stephen's fell sonorous and reverberant 
into the moist November air. Persis Thrale counted 
them. “Only five! And too dark to read already! 
How long these short last days of November seem !” 

Persis was leaning back in a most luxurious chair, 
her book open in her lap. She rose as she made her 
comment on the day, and the book slid unnoticed to 
the carpet. Persis locked her arms behind her, filled 
her lungs with a deep slow inhalation, and began to 
pace up and down in the twilight of the room. Then 
an electric light from the near street corner flashed out, 
reflected the patterns of the lace curtains in fine tracery 
upon the wall, lit books, pictures, furniture, bijouterie, 
and made a splendor greater than the November day 
had known. In this splendor Persis moved to and fro. 
As she went and came along the length of the room a 


6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


girl met her and duly turned and retreated ; a tall girl 
with chestnut hair wherein lurked little hints of red 
and gold ; dark brown eyes that could deepen into 
blackness ; firm nose, mouth, and chin ; cheeks with 
varying dimples ; complexion of vigorous health — a fig- 
ure young, supple, strong ; step easy and swift ; a well- 
endowed girl certainly, yet going and coming in this 
long pier glass she was a restless, unsatisfied girl. 

This was the favored ‘ ‘ best room ” of a “ first-class 
boarding-house.” Many of its luxuries and ornaments 
belonged to Persis herself. This picture and this statu- 
ette before which she paused, vaguely wondering if their 
old-world makers had been satisfied in their accomplish- 
ment, she had brought from Europe. There had been 
no lack of money to prevent her from garnishing this 
cabinet to her taste with shells and minerals. This port- 
folio of sketches full of spirit and subtle thought-sugges- 
tion — her own work ; the water color, low down on the 
wall between the windows, her creation also in a happy 
hour ; this book, all fresh in binding, with the very 
latest fad in side stamps, a child of her brain ; this 
uncut magazine bore in the table of contents the name 
of her article upon a question of philanthropy. Persis 
laid her finger on it scornfully. “Wise am I in philan- 
thropy ? What a sham ! What am I doing in philan- 
thropy? Do I lift that intolerable burden of suffering 
with one of my fingers ? Oh, nineteenth century Phari- 
see ! It needs the Man of Galilee to score these fair 
pretensions with the lightning of his soul-deep facts !” 

Up and down, up and down, meeting that other 


POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 


7 


restless girl of twenty-five at each turn, but paying her 
no heed, and always as she neared her hearing a sound 
of low passionate weeping. One of life's tragedies had 
visited that first-class boarding-house that morning. 

“I must,” said Persis ; “I have put it off too long. 
What a detestable coward lam! I think I could find 
myself in a burning building, or walk up to a cannon's 
mouth at the instant of firing, with less trepidation than 
I can look upon human sorrow, upon grief which I can- 
not cure. Why is this largess of shown sympathy ex- 
pected of us ? Visits of condolence — letters of consola- 
tion ! Why are these things demanded, and ,what good 
do they do ? I wish I had Mrs. Sayce s happy faculty ; 
she really does comfort people — never stops to think 
about it, but just slides into the place of ministering 
angel, and upholds fainting hearts ; I suppose it is be- 
cause she never thinks of herself. What would poor 
Miss Hughes have done without her to-day I wonder ?” 
And then gathering up all her courage — which was 
small enough at that crisis, Persis Thrale, very nervous 
and alarmed in spite of her stately style, disappeared 
into the hall, and knocked at the door of the adjoining 
room. 

It was fifteen minutes since the bell in St. Stephen's 
had pealed five. 

That next room had for several years been the home 
of two sisters greatly differing in age, appearance and 
tastes. The elder, middle-aged, prematurely grey, a 
fair, sweet-faced, pre-eminently gentle woman, was an 
artist of no small repute. The younger, dark, brisk. 


8 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


self-asserting, scarcely twenty-three, had been pursuing 
her education — graduating at a seminary, then at a Con- 
servatory of Elocution, then at a Kindergarten Training- 
school. Six weeks before, just as the last term in this 
training-school was closing, the sisters parted for the 
first time in their joint lives. Miss Hughes came home 
one day and quietly announced that her physician had 
ordered her at once to go to Bermuda on account of 
a bronchial trouble. She had taken passage on a steam- 
ship which would sail in two days. 

Harriet, in a very anguish of alarm, demanded leave 
to accompany her. “It is not worth while,” said the 
calm elder sister ; “I prefer to go alone.” Harriet must 
finish the course of study which had absorbed her so 
long. For herself, in a few weeks she would return 
well, her portfolio filled with new studies. 

She had gone. A cheerful letter came, then a sec- 
ond ; that very morning Harriet, full of joy, had taken to 
Mrs. Sayce in the opposite room a third letter from her 
sister, a letter telling of feeling so well and so cheery, so 
full of satisfaction in the lovely island home. Then, 
even while the two were reading this letter, another came 
by hand of the ship’s clerk. It was from Miss Hughes’ 
landlord in Bermuda. Miss Hughes had been found dead 
beside the table where lay the letter just directed to her 
sister — the letter then in Harriet’s hand ! The same ship 
brought that letter, this letter from the landlord, and the 
casket in which lay Miss Hughes’ body ; in fact, the 
clerk had already brought that casket to the door. All 
day the casket which held the body of the elder sister lay 


POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 


9 


in the centre of the darkened drawing-room below stairs, 
and all day Harriet in her bereavement had sobbed and 
wept in her room, while friends went and came, impotent 
to solace, making preparations for the burial. All day 
Persis Thrale had felt that she must go with words of 
sympathy to this other girl, now alone in the world as she 
was herself, and all day she had shrunk from performing 
this simple office of humanity. Persis felt as if she little 
knew the face of sorrow, for though she was alone in the 
world her losses had come to her in the unreflecting 
days of childhood. 

Now, however, the decisive knock on the closed door 
was given, and Harriet Hughes had said “Come in,” 
striving to check the exhibition of her misery. 

“She was so good and sweet, I do not wonder that 
you are heart-broken for her — so gentle, gracious, self- 
sacrificing. Even here she did not seem far from the 
angel or saint that she has been these days in heaven.” 
Thus Persis, lamely and feebly consoling. 

“Oh, but you do not know half how good she was, 
nor how much she has been to me ! And I am now 
alone. ” 

‘ ‘ Alone for her — but there are other friends, relatives, 
are there not ? I have heard her speak of brothers, of 
nieces — ” 

“Not mine. Oh, I must tell you, and then you will 
see what she was ; so much nobler than other people. 
Her mother had died, and her elder brothers were mar- 
ried, when her father, her twin brother and the lover to 
whom she was soon to be married all were killed in the 


10 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Battle of the Wilderness. And what do you think she 
did as soon as she rose from the first prostration of that 
terrible blow ? She found me, a poor little sickly, mis- 
erable orphan baby of three months old, with no hope or 
future but to be sent to the poor-house, and she adopted 
me for her sister. She sought comfort in doing good. 
All her property had been left by her father so that it 
would go to her brothers if she had no children of her 
own, but that did not matter ; by her own earnings as an 
artist she has educated me, cared for me, laid up for me 
a little competence. You know she was lovely and good, 
but did you ever think or dream how good ? She found 
consolation in doing good, and grief made her more and 
more unselfish. I too shall try to be like that : just as 
soon as — as I have found my breath a little, after this 
sudden sorrow — then I shall give myself as she did to 
unselfish work for others. It is the only way left me of 
showing my gratitude. ” 

A servant came in softly and lit the gas. 

“Night? Night is it?” said Harriet, sitting up on 
her bed and smoothing back with trembling hands her 
disordered hair. 

“Night for us,” said Persis ; “night down here ; but 
there is no night there. These weeks she has been dwell- 
ing in the days of heaven. Until you told me I did not 
know how many that she loved she had to meet her over 
there. Time since she lost them will seem but as a 
dream. ” 

“Oh, you comfort me. That thought is good,” said 
Harriet, holding out her hand for Persis’ clasp. 


POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 


1 1 

She comforted her! Yes, for the hour Persis had 
forgotten self. 

Persis left Harriet to Mrs. Sayce, and went back to 
her own room. It was almost six now. She went to the 
window to close the inside blinds, the maid had forgotten 
them, and now the gas was lighted. The electric light 
at the corner made a great circle of brilliant clearness. 
Just entering the outer line of that expanse of splendor 
she saw a gaunt girl carrying a big bundle of tailor’s 
work. The little woolen hood clung damply to her 
damp hair ; the thin plaid shawl, pulled tight about her, 
show'ed shoulders bent and crooked from years of leaning 
over a sewing-machine ; the raw wind whipped her shab- 
by skirts about her ankles, presumably wet from the 
sloppy pavement. She had entered the wide street by a 
narrow alley leading from a business thoroughfare, and 
right on the corner which she must pass were the bril- 
liantly lighted and decorated windows of a first-class 
bakery, lately opened in that highly genteel neighbor- 
hood ” to the lasting exasperation of all its ancient in- 
habitants. 

Persis, arrested in the act of closing the narrow panels 
of the blinds, saw this poor sister of hers pause and look 
longingly at the display in the window. Then she drew 
a little purse from her pocket, opened it, and seemed 
carefully to calculate the possibilities of its contents. 
Hesitating a little she entered the elegant establishment 
with humility and preferred her requests at the counter, 
with an air very different from that of the pert servants of 
the locality, who came in on errands for the household- 


12 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


ers. Persis, greatly interested, saw the hand of one of 
the shop-girls reach into the window, pick out a roll and 
a small cake, drop them into a little paper sac, give it a 
twist and a toss, and consign it to the shabby customer. 
The girl did not return the change to her purse : Persis 
saw her stop beside an orange-seller in the next doorway 
and buy an orange. 

“Not for herself,” said Persis; “for some one she 
cares for.” 

Persis was a girl of impulsive temperament, fearless 
in action, eager for experiences. She took her long mack- 
intosh from the closet, and as she went fleetly down stairs 
she buttoned it about her, and pulled the hood over her 
head. Once out in the street she saw the girl going 
slowly but steadily along in the distance, with her cum- 
bersome burden of work. Strong and unburdened Per- 
sis went after her, soon came closely behind her, and 
then a kind of shame, bashfulness, awkwardness came 
upon this nursling of good society. What should she 
say to her poor sister ? How should she reveal that she 
had watched her, followed her? Hesitating, and still 
following, she went on and on, and so these two — the 
weary shop girl heavily burdened in heart and arms, ill- 
protected, hopeless, but enduring, and the rich girl, full 
of curiosity and sympathy and embarrassment, intent on 
doing something but not quite clear as to what and 
how — kept on their way, entering poorer streets, darker, 
narrower, more remote from gentle boarding-housedom. 
At last the girl, never looking behind her, entered a 
stairway, where there was no ceremony of door giving 


POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 


13 


upon the street, and up she went, two flights of stairs. 
Persis went after her, resolved that if now any one chal- 
lenged her she would say she wished to find a plain- 
seamstress and button-hole maker. A harsh cough 
echoed through the stairway, and the burdened girl hast- 
ened her pace. She lifted a latch and a door swung 
open, but no light shone out. Yes, there was a faint 
flicker as of a very small fire burning behind dull isinglass 
in a stove. 

‘ ‘ All in the dark, Annie ! Coughing, dear ? Are 
you worse?” This thin tired girl spoke bravely. The 
reply did not reach Persis, who stayed her steps on the 
landing. The girl dropped her big bundle. 

“We need a little change of air here, dear; we will 
leave the door open a minute. Croly paid me every cent 
without a grumble ; what do you think of that for a mar- 
vel ? I brought you an orange and a roll and the loveli- 
est little charlotte russe ! What do you think of that for 
extravagance ? But then I have another huge bundle of 
work. There, now the lamp is lit, and I ’ll stir up the 
fire and make a cup of tea ; that will set us right up.” 

Persis stood in the shadow absorbed in the interest of 
this little scene. The one-room home was such a bare, 
shabby place. The narrow, poorly-furnished bed con- 
trasted so with that luxurious couch of hers ; there were 
two rocking-chairs, two boxes covered with calico, evi- 
dently designed to serve as emergency-seats, a table, the 
machine, a worn old wooden cupboard, doorless, on the 
shelves of which stood a few dishes and cooking utensils 
with some small wooden and paper boxes, presumably 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


H 

containing food or culinary indispensables. That was 
all, except the lamp and a small box of coal. There was 
the pale, thin, sick sister, stretched back, as in utter 
weakness, in one of the rocking-chairs, and that other 
girl, the worn bread-winner, making a great show of 
courage and energy to hearten her feebler comrade for 
the task of existing. Persis yearned to go in to them, to 
speak, to clasp hands, to make helpful friends ; but what 
should she say ? How explain her presence there ? How 
state her errand ? And what errand had she ? Then the 
girl who was moving here and there in the room turned, 
came forward, and the door was shut. Persis felt that 
she had failed ; had been insufficient to so small a de- 
mand upon her adaptability. She realized that in a book 
she could have made her heroine do the right, easy, gra- 
cious thing at the moment, but it is much easier to make 
people do well in books than to do well one’s self! 

“So it is,” mused Persis; “self, self, self. I think 
what will people say or think about me ; how shall I 
explain myself ; what is best for me ; and while I am 
planning to make everything just right for myself, op- 
portunity passes ; is gone. I can make my story charac- 
ter do better because she is not self-centered. I suppose 
I must go home, and end this evening, as all the rest of 
my life will perhaps end, uselessly to others. What a still, 
chilly place this house is !” 

Just as she turned to grope her way down the stairs 
she heard from above a pitiful crying, ‘ ‘ Mammy 1 mam- 
my I What is it ? Wake up. Can’t you wake up ? 
Oh 1 I ’m so ’fraid. ” 


POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 


15 


No real woman is ever deaf to the cry of a child. 

God made women and children for each other. The 

steps of Persis were quickly turned, and up the next 
flight of stairs she sped as if on an accustomed way. 
There was an open door, and a room dimly revealed by 
the light coming in from the window of another room, 
near and opposite, in the narrow back court. A bed was 
near to the window, and on the bed lay a dark heap — 
a woman — and clinging, shivering near, and lamenting, 
was a short, odd-looking child figure. The room was 
cold, fireless, desolate. Persis made her way to the bed. 
“What is wrong, my little child Let me help you. 
Can we light a lamp ? Have you no fire ?” 

‘ ‘ The oil ’s out ; it went, and went, and is all gone. 

Then I opened the door to be less afraid, and mammy 
lay on the bed and moaned and moaned ; and then 
stopped, and I can’t get her to move or speak. ” 

Persis passed her gloved hand over the face and form, 
the figure was rigid and chilly. Was this death .? Persis 
Thrale had fled out of her old horizon now. Life for 
the instant was merely the theatre of the miseries of these 
two outcasts. “I’ll get help for you,” she said, ran 
down the stairs, opened the door of the sisters’ room 
without stopping to knock, and cried, “Oh, please, 
wont you come ? I think the woman upstairs is dead, or 
dying, and the little girl is all alone.” 

The sisters were just about to drink their tea, which 
was set out on a corner of the table. As Persis spoke 
the young seamstress started up, ‘ ‘ Oh, poor Mrs. Gay- 
ley ! Why did n’t I think of her ! Let me take the lamp. 


i6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Annie,” and with the lamp in one hand and her cup of 
untasted tea in the other she hurried up the stairs, fol- 
lowed by Persis. As if experienced in such scenes, the 
girl felt of the unconscious woman, straightened her, 
raised her head a little, and began to feed her small 
quantities of tea. ‘ ‘ What is it ? What is the matter ?” 
urged Persis. 

^‘Matter! Lack of all things. Can’t you see?” 

“And will money do any good?” cried Persis, feeling 
in her pocket. 

“ Money do good ! I should say it would !” 

“ Here, then ; let me feed her the tea. I do n’t know 
where to go, and — I ’m afraid. Get anything she needs. 
If that is’n’t enough I ’ll go home for more.” 

“You’d have to go back to heaven then!” cried 
the girl, with a half-laugh grasping the purse; “I can’t 
think of any creature but an angel giving such an un- 
limited order here. I will be back soon. ” 

Persis heard her go to the room below, then go out. 
She herself stood administering the weak but warm tea ; 
she thought that presently the woman’s throat moved as 
if she swallowed. The little girl, too, awed by the 
splendid stranger, who had descended from heaven in 
a green Henrietta-cloth and mackintosh, rested against 
her mother’s pillow. Persis saw that she was a hump- 
back, with large sorrowful eyes and a pretty pathetic 
mouth. 

After a time her coadjutor returned with two boys 
carrying coal, kindling and groceries. “Your money is 
all spent,” she said briskly. 


POSSESSING ALL THINGS. 1 7 

“I’m glad of it,” said Persis. “Probably I never 
spent any so well before. Do you need more ?’’ 

“Not to-night,” said the girl, laughing and building 
a fire. 

“Is that a beef-tea jar I see before me? Drink a 
bowl of it yourself instantly, or I will disappear hnd 
never return,” said Persis. 


New Ssmaritan. 


2 


i8 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER II. 

HAVING NOTHING. 

“ From that torpor deep 
Wherein we lie asleep, 

Heavy as death, cold as the grave. 

Save, oh save !” 

‘ ^ There ! There’s a fire! Trinka, you come and 
get warm. Put some water in the kettle. I ’ll go and 
make the beef tea in my room. I ’ve water boiling. ” 

“Make a big pitcherful. Use it all. Give your 
sister some and Trinka, and drink a pint yourself, and 
we ’ll give this poor woman all she can take,” ordered 
Persis. 

“All right. Trinka, here's a roll meanwhile. Un- 
pack these things. Stir round and put them away. Oh, 
do you see ? — I bought a big comfortable ; there are 
hardly any clothes on that bed. Warm it up, Trinka, 
and tuck it over your mother, and heat up that flat- 
iron and lay it at her feet. Fill your lamp and light 
it. I ’ll take this. ” 

“Oh how smart you are — thinking of everything !” 
cried Persis. 

After a little the girl came back with a steaming 
pitcher of the beef tea. “There, Trinka, try that bowl 
of good stuff and another roll ; you ’re not likely to over- 
eat. Mother warming up any? Annie’s enjoying her 
tea finely. ” And as Persis now began to administer beef 


HAVING NOTHING. 


19 


tea to the patient her comrade seated herself on the 
foot of the bed, a bowl of hot broth in one hand a big 
roll in the other, and leisurely, with evident enjoyment, 
proceeded with her supper. “ I do n’t know where you 
dropped from,” she said, eying Persis. 

“No? Oh, I thought you did ! Are you beginning 
to trace me back to any less agreeable locality than you 
did a little while ago ? I ’ll explain myself to you later ; 
do n’t remind me of my own personality or you ’ll par- 
alyze me, and I seem to need all my energies at present. 
Tell me : how did this poor soul fall into such a terrible 
state ?” 

“ It ’s easy to explain : no money to live without 
work, and no work of her kind to be had. White goods 
market overdone. My work is boys’ clothes. You can 
count on the boys as tearing-machines, to keep con- 
sumption up to production, every time ; if you ’re mod- 
erate in your demands, of course. Poor Mrs. Gayley 
has looked for work and grown heart-sick, and sold 
everything she had ; and finally all was gone — food, fuel, 
money, property, hope, courage, strength — and she 
collapsed. I make a guess that she has n’t had any 
food or fire for twenty-four hours. That so, Trinka?” 

“Yes,” said Trinka, too filled with comfort to weep. 

“Shows how easy it is to be selfish. I ought to have 
looked after her. But the wolf is in our door, head and 
shoulders, most of the time. Mrs. Gayley couldn’t 
alFord this rent ; when she was out of work she ought 
to have found a cheaper place ; but she wasn’t used to 
rough life, and she was afraid of cellars or back attics in 


20 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


the very slums. Timidity and pride do n’t run well with 
no work. Rent behind, Trinka?” 

“Yes. The man came to-day and said he’d put 
us out to-morrow, and mammy just lay down and 
moaned till she went that way. Oh, Miss Clarke, I 
wish you’d saved a little of that money to pay him 
some rent !” 

“Never mind,” soothed Persis. “The rent shall all 
be paid to-morrow, and some in advance too. You ’ll 
see that they are not evicted before I get here. Miss 
Clarke?” 

“Yes, indeed. You seem to be a kind of human 
mint. Money must come easy to you. I ’m glad you 
chanced in here, for Mrs. Gayley and Trinka are right 
nice people : aren’t you, Trinka? She’s coming to. All 
to do now is to feed her some bread soaked in the tea, in 
about an hour, and keep her warm, and tell her good 
news when she gets awake enough to hear it. You can 
do all that, can’t you, little woman ?” 

Trinka felt assured that she could. 

“I can’t stop longer, I have to sew in the evening.” 

“And I must go,” said Persis, suddenly seized with 
vague terrors of her unusual surroundings, the dim 
streets, the strange neighorhood, the advancing night. 
The two girls went down stairs together. 

“Good-by,” said, Persis, holding out her hand, 
“to-morrow I will be back.” 

Once in the street she hastened along by the way in 
which she had come — by this turn and that into a full, 
noisy street, which she had sometimes passed along 


HAVING NOTHING. 


21 


but always with much disgust and in the daylight. Two 
or three noisy bars were delivering squads of shouting 
half-drunken men to the sidewalks. In the battle be- 
tween the home and the saloon the home was evidently 
getting the worst of it. A clock struck nine. Two 
rowdies began to sing a ribald song ; no policeman was 
in sight ; with loud profanity a man and a woman en- 
tered into a quarrel. The terror of Persis increased ; 
she wished to escape, but her desire so much outran her 
capacity of motion that it seemed as if her feet clung to 
the pavement. She rehearsed the horrors of nightmare. 
Around a corner came a tall man, white hair flowing 
from under a soft felt hat pulled low, white beard lying 
like drifted snow on his broad breast, his head bent 
against the east storm, his shoulders a trifle bowed by 
the weight of many working years. Persis met him 
fairly, and clasped his arm as she said joyfully, “O 
Dr. Bond ! Are you here ? Take me home ! I 'm 
frightened V 

Dr. Bond put his hands on her shoulders. ^‘Persis 
Thrale ! You here at this time in the evening alone 
Then he tucked her hand under his arm, faced about, 
and they began to tread the way to her home. “What 
does this mean, my child 

He had known her, as the rest of the children of his 
flock, for years ; he had catechized her and taken her 
into the communion of the church, yet always felt in 
some way that her reticent, self-contained nature eluded 
him ; she was always the calm, sufficient, rather cold 
and abundantly capable girl, and he had never called 


22 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


her “my child” before. Now she had come close to 
him, demanded something of him, rested upon him 
childlike ; how natural it seemed ! This hoary shepherd 
was fond of his flock, especially the lambs. So they 
went on together. 

“It means,” said Persis, “that I have been down 
seeing how the other half of the world lives, and it is 
terrible ! It means that I find my nerves shaken by 
merely seeing what others are daily enduring ; it means 
that I have found work : something to do. ” 

“But I thought you were always busy, Persis.” 

“Oh, yes, in certain separate spheres of work which 
revolved around Persis Thrale as their central sun. I 
have had a revelation, a call. I have been led out of 
myself, and I am not going back ! To-night I am sha- 
ken and afraid because all has been so sudden ; but to- 
morrow I shall have accustomed myself to it and be 
more able to help. The trouble will be to keep from 
being overwhelmed by seeing so much to do, and feeling 
myself able at best to do so little. Oh, Dr. Bond, did 
you know of this great misery around us? To-night I 
have seen girls of my own age fighting, in hunger, cold 
and sickness, for mere bread ; I have seen a woman 
dying, yes, dying — you understand ? — of starvation !” 

“The awakening has been a rude one — but — it is 
well to be awake at any cost,” said the pastor. 

This girl, in her calm, amiably assenting way, had 
lent her aid when asked in the Christian Association 
work, had fulfilled her duties in the Sunday-school and 
Missionary Society, had subscribed when the papers 


HAVING NOTHING. 


23 


went the rounds, had sat twice on Sundays and again on 
Wednesday evening — goodly to look at, statuesque, dis- 
tantly admired by friend and neighbor — in her pew during 
service time. Was the latent life within her becoming 
forceful at last, stirring the marble to a woman’s energies 
of gracious service ? 

^‘So much to be done — who will help me do it?” 

“Be sure you will find helpers; for I have seen it 
always to be true that where one heart is stirred for 
good other hearts are always similarly stirred. God 
never sends his workers one by one ; his plan is at least 
two by two, as he sent the seventy. Wherever a work 
opened to be done there rose up hearts to do it. The 
first worker never remained long solitary. That first 
worker is sometimes set to arouse the others, but their 
answer is prompt. If you have found new work, Persis, 
you will find new workers to help you. Seek them 
with care, choose them with judgment. Here we are 
at your home. I hope, my child, that you have not 
taken cold.” 

Persis laughed. She was twenty-five and full of 
vigor ; an expedition even in that raw storm from the 
east was not likely to shake her buoyant health. 

“I will see you to-morrow afternoon, Persis. You 
will tell me about this new interest ; perhaps my long 
experiences in city work may help you a little.” 

The wet mackintosh was hung to dry, the damp 
shoes gave place to warm, soft slippers. Persis put her 
feet near the radiator, leaned back in her low chair, and 
clasped her hands behind her head ; she was not nearly 


24 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


as bored by existence as she had been when St. Stephen’s 
bell announced five. A tap ; a waiter came in with tea 
daintily set forth on a tray. 

“Miss, we were afraid you had had no tea.” 

Persis sat up and looked at tea biscuit, cold tongue, 
cake, jelly, as at strangers. She had forgotten for the 
moment that all these were Persis Thrale’s perquisites in 
life ; she had forgotten that she had had no tea. When 
the girl left her alone, and she was realizing how very 
hungry she was, suddenly she laid down the gold spoon, 
with which in her mouth she had metaphorically been 
born, and remarked, “Persis Thrale, I’m very much 
afraid that all this gorgeousness comes to you by gross 
injustice; by robbery. Do you understand me? By 
sheer robbery ! I ’ll see that thing through to-morrow. ” 
She did not refer to the affair of Katharine Clarke and 
the widow Gayley ; neither was she developing social- 
istic sentiments. 

As early as possible next morning Persis returned to 
Ramsay Street and knocked at the door of the Clarke 
sisters. 

“Come in!” cried the elder from her machine. 

‘ ‘ Oh, you are here ; you have not regretted your extrav- 
agancies over night ?” 

“On the contrary, I am resolved to commit more of 
them. But the first matter is about that rent and the 
finding Mrs. Gayley something to do. ” 

“Now you are talking good sense. It is work that 
we workers want, not alms ; though some, like Mrs. 
Gayley, are driven to the extremity of taking alms. 


HAVING NOTHING. 2$ 

You’ll find it easier to pay the rent than to find the 
work. ” 

“Then I ’ll make the work,” said Persis stoutly. 

‘ ‘ What work 

“Whatever she can do.” 

‘ ‘ There ; now you are right at the knotty point of 
the problem. What can she do ? The women who can 
do even one thing absolutely well are little likely to fall 
into such destitution ; they may be nippingly poor, but 
not like that. Mrs. Gayley is one of the women who 
have not learned to do anything perfectly. She was 
brought up to help her mother in the home and to ex- 
pect to get married. Some people think that is the only 
really proper way to bring up girls. I don’t. The 
mother is not likely to demand such accuracy as the 
master ; the husband may turn out shiftless, or sickly, 
or die, and then the public will ask, ‘ What can you do 
for a living ?’ Some women are such housekeepers that 
they can always command a position in some establish- 
ment, or be specialists in varieties of cooking that are in 
demand. Mrs. Gayley’s housekeeping was of the plain 
kind put up with by artisans ; her sewing, making, fit- 
ting, were fair, but not skilled labor. I don’t know 
what she can do but just the cheap starvation-wages 
work of which there is always a glut in the market, and 
half its seasons are slack seasons.” 

“You seem to have studied these problems.’’ 

“I should say I have.” 

“And from your conversation I should fancy you had 
been trained for higher labor than machine-running. ” 


26 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“I was a school-teacher, and a good one. My throat 
gave out. We were without any resources but our wits. 
I learned thoroughly the boys’ clothing work — and — we 
live as you see. ” The machine whirled faster to make up 
for lost time. 

“ Shall I go up and give Mrs. Gayley the rent ?” 

“Yes: that will be all right. Five dollars and a 
half. She pays too much — a dollar and a half a week for 
that little back room ! But the neighborhood is safe and 
quiet, and women will pay a good deal for that. You 
noticed how still it was last night ?” 

“Yes. Is n’t this near Gardner Street 

“Three blocks.” 

‘ ‘ Is Gardner Street as respectable as this 

“ Yes : a trifle more so.” 

“Miss Annie,” said Persis, taking the tissue paper 
from a basket which she carried, “I have brought you 
some fruit.” 

“Oh, Katherine,” cried Annie, “do look !” 

The pretty basket was piled with oranges, apples, 
pears, grapes, bananas and figs, with a few sweet bay 
leaves. 

“It is beautiful, and very kind. Do you know that 
fruit piled in a basket that way costs nearly double the 
price of the separate fruits said the seamstress. 

‘ ‘ I had not thought of it, ” said Persis meekly. 

“I know ; I was wild enough to price a basket once, 
when Annie was sick, it was so pretty ; but I concluded 
that Annie would think a few fruits laid on a plate, at a 
quarter of the price, pretty enough for us ; eh, Annie ?” 


HAVING NOTHING. 27 

“Whatever you do is pretty to me, Katherine,” said 
Annie. 

“Is your name Katherine?” said Persis. “I always 
wished that mine was. It is my favorite name.” 

‘ ‘ My name is Katherine ; Katherine with a K, too, if 
you will please to remark. As I can indulge in style in 
nothing else I have the most stylish method with my 
name, ” said the workwoman cheerfully. 

“ I shall come back for a long talk some day soon,” 
said Persis ; “now I must see Mrs. Gayley, and go 
home.” 

The question of work for Mrs. Gayley Persis solved 
for the present by sending her a quantity of crash to make 
into towels, and unbleached cotton to hem into sheets. 
It had not occurred to her to notice that the sewing- 
machine had vanished to the pawn-shop, but happily 
Mrs. Gayley could hem by hand. The machine and the 
widow's other Lares and Penates came back later, under 
Persis’ direction. With a shrinking that almost amount- 
ed to agony, and was both constitutional and cultivated, 
Persis Thrale had tried to keep herself from the sight and 
sound of sorrow. Flowers and notes from her had gone, 
when courtesy imperatively demanded them, to the 
houses of mourning, but Persis herself seldom crossed a 
threshold where the long black scarfs waved, and just as 
seldom did she attend a funeral. She came home from 
the burial of Miss Hughes weary in mind and body, and 
having let into her room all the sunshine possible, provi- 
ded fresh flowers, and called for a fire in the grate, she sat 
down to rest her nerves before discussing a question. 


28 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


^‘Mr. Inskip, Miss Thrale,” said a maid at the door. 

‘'Show him up, please,” said Persis. 

“Perhaps I should not have come to-day?” said Mr. 
Inskip. “ I did not hear about Miss Hughes’ death until 
this moment.” 

‘ ‘ I expected you — I ’m glad you ’re here. I want to 
ask you about several things. Are you comfortable? 
Do you like that chair ? I thought you preferred 
the purple one. I know you do ; here, let me wheel it 
up.” 

“Don’t disturb yourself,” said Mr. Inskip, laying 
hold of the chair; “yes, thank you, I think this chair 
does suit my anatomy better — made for me, in fact. I 
wonder if your landlady would sell it.” 

“She daren’t ; it belongs to me. Is that that ever- 
lasting leather book that we have studied for seven 
years ? Are you not tired of it ?” 

“By such books I live. Your house on Gardner 
Street is vacated to-day — ” 

‘ ‘ That ’s good news ; I have found a satisfactory 
tenant for it. ” 

“Really! Then you are going to look after your 
own business a little? I shall be pleased indeed, for 
these matters could as well be handled by you as by a — ” 

“Skilled lawyer? No doubt ; but it is the skilled 
lawyer to whom I must go for wisdom this day Jane, 
tea, please ” — to the maid who had answered her bell. 
That ‘ ‘ please ” which slid so invariably and easily over 
Persis Thrale’s lips prevented the answering of her bell 
from ever seeming burdensome to the house servants. 


HAVING NOTHING. 29 

This monthly visit of Mr. Inskip and the ring for tea 
and biscuit were regular events. 

“There you have it — hot, strong sweet ; Jersey cream, 
and your Albert biscuit. Now let us proceed to busi- 
ness. Mr. Inskip, were you in Judge Wexford’s office 
when the case North vs. Thrale was tried ?” 

“Yes. Where did you strike that case.?” 

“Up in the Capitol Library. I went up there as a 
special favor to read where I liked in the Court Reports. 
The fact is, I wanted to find a case that fitted a story 
that I was writing, a case parallel to one I had detailed ; 
I wanted to see how courts had considered it. Acciden- 
tally I saw my own name, Thrale, and I read up the 
case, and lo, it was not only the name Thrale, but my 
name Thrale ; and my money too was in question — or 
my grandfather’s — and I saw that the defendant’s lawyer 
was Judge Wexford, once your partner.” 

“Yes : I entered his office as a lad, became partner, 
and succeeded to the business. Yes, I remember all 
about that case. It was the first great property case that 
had come up since I had been admitted to the bar, and 
though I was not one of the counsel I had considerable 
to do with it, and was much interested. Wexford won : 
he always won ; it was a way he had.” 

“But tell me honestly, as a Christian gentleman, 
do you think all the right was on the side that won ?” 

“I think,” said Mr. Inskip, meeting her eyes fairly, 
“that there was a good deal to be said on the other 
side. ” 

“That is exactly what I thought, reading the case.” 


30 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“I thought that if Judge Wexford had been retained 
by the plaintiff he might have secured for them not 
all they claimed — they claimed too much — but one third 
of your great-grandfather’s estate for the Norths. I 
think that was really the old man’s intention. But why 
speak of it? Your grandfather held what he had; 
your father inherited it and left it to you. The court 
decided for the Thrales. If the case had been carried 
up to the Supreme Court the decision might have been 
reversed. But heart and means failed the Norths and 
they accepted defeat. That is all long past, and you 
cannot help it, Miss Persis.” 

“ I can’t ?” said Persis with a flash of her big brown 
eyes. “Are there any of these Norths living, Mr. 
Inskip ?” 

‘ ‘ Do you know, I have always felt an interest in keep- 
ing track of them. There are two elderly women left. 
Miss Rebecca and Miss Susan ; they support themselves 
by some little handiwork. I don’t know' what.” 

“Give me their address, please,” said Persis. 


THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 


31 


CHAPTER III. 

THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 

“ And at his side with patience eat 

Of his hard bread, and share his cup 
Below — they shall be summoned up 
Beside him in his joys to sup.” 

When Persis Thrale said, “Give me their address, 
please,” Mr. Inskip realized that he was dealing with a 
very young, a very enthusiastic, and a very independent 
woman, whose heart was much larger than her experi- 
ences of life. 

“ Miss Persis,” he said anxiously, “tell me what you 
have it in mind to do.” 

“Nothing; absolutely nothing; my mind is empty 
of all plan as a last year’s nest is empty of eggs. ” 

Whatever had been his private sympathy with the 
Norths, whatever his opinion of the justice of their 
claims in that long-ago suit, all Mr. Inskip’s interests 
had now gone over to this young girl, whose guardian 
he had long been and whose man of business he still 
was. To her the Thrale thousands seemed to belong 
by a divine right ; the court had given them to the 
Thrales and three generations of possession had con- 
secrated that giving. ‘ ‘ Persis, ” he said, ‘ ‘ I want you 
to promise me something.” 

‘ ‘ Let us hear what it is, ” said Persis contumaciously. 

“It is merely that you will not pledge anything, or 


32 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


decide upon anything, or take any action as regards 
your property, before talking the matter over freely with 
me." 

“Certainly I will promise you that," said Persis, 
bending forward and taking his hand with one of those 
radiant smiles which had made her always popular, 
despite her natural hauteur. ‘ ‘ Can I forget my father’s 
friend, my long-patient guardian ? Of course I will take 
no important step without talking with you. Don’t 
I know that I can always talk you into my own opin- 
ions ?” she added, resting her head back in her chair, her 
eyes full of laughing reminiscences of days when she and 
her guardian had differed. 

‘ ‘ There, now, drink your tea in peace of mind ; you 
need not go home and tell Mrs. Inskip that my idiosyn- 
crasies are rendering your hair gray. ’’ 

“There’s one comfort with you : I can always tie 
to your promises — and your tea is always hot." 

“There are two comforts enumerated," corrected 
Persis. 

“And you intend to hunt up the Norths? The two 
are the daughters of the plaintiff in North vs. Thrale — 
your father’s compeers. They never married, and they 
are, I believe, called peculiar." 

“I shall hunt them up before the sun sets,” said the 
tireless Persis, fully reinvigorated by the thought of a 
new undertaking. 

‘ ‘ In that case, set forth at once and I will see you 
some squares on the way. As usual, I have two or three 
commissions for Mrs. Inskip.” 


THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 33 

“One of which was to invite me for dinner next 
Saturday — and you have forgotten it,” said Persis. 

“I had not forgotten; could I forget what was 
not?” said the lawyer stoutly ; “but consider yourself 
invited.” 

Mr. Inskip signalled a car for Persis, and stood for 
a moment on the street corner looking after her as she 
was borne swiftly away. Then he pursued his walk 
slowly, meditating on what had passed. 

Persis was eight years old when the death of her 
parents had left her in his guardianship. An aunt of 
her mother had assumed the immediate care of the 
child, but in four years this aunt died and Persis was 
put into a boarding-school. Then came seven years of 
earnest, faithful study, until Persis graduated from col- 
lege leading her class. The next two years were spent 
in Europe, travelling with friends. On her return she 
remained for a year at her guardian’s suburban home, 
then chose those rooms in the “first-class boarding 
establishment.” She had plenty of friends, plenty of 
money, and her literary and artistic tastes had led her 
into constant congenial occupation. Mr. Inskip re- 
flected that for a long time he had taken anxious 
thought lest the beautiful and wealthy girl should be 
sought for her fortune and make an unhappy marriage ; 
but his fears had been laid at rest, as Persis had turned 
a deaf ear to all lovers whatsoever, had been superior to 
flattery, and found her chief friends and companions 
among her own sex. The girl was liberal, lavish some- 
times, never extravagant or wasteful : she had never 

New Samaritan. 2 


34 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


used up her income and her property continued to 
accumulate. “ I hope,” he said to himself, as he pulled 
himself together to drop meditations on his recent ward 
and execute one of Mrs. Inskip’s commissions, “I hope 
that girl will not go into some reckless Quixotic scheme. 
It would be almost beyond foolish human nature, I 
fear, for her to go on as sensibly as she has begun. To 
think that she should ferret out that North vs. Thrale, 
and see right into it too ! What did Mrs. Inskip say 
about those two arm-chairs — where is that mem. ?” 

Persis in the meantime had changed from one car 
to another, and finally found herself in a region of very 
small, cheap houses, occupied by people of the nice, 
quiet variety, with microscopic incomes and highly 
specialized family pride. One little house, at the end of 
a row of six as closely alike as peas in a pod, was the 
dwelling-place of the Misses North. 

Persis felt now none of the trepidation which had 
hindered her when she followed Katherine Clarke home. 
The Misses North were of her own blood, they consid- 
ered that they had a grievance laid up against her ; all 
Persis’ personality rose up to subjugate these enemies 
and make them her friends. In answer to her knock, 
a slim, gray, severe-looking woman of about fifty 
opened the door. Her gaze had in it so little of wel- 
come that it barely failed to be hostility. 

“Are you Miss North.?” asked Persis. 

“Yes.” 

The world had not been particularly good to Miss 
Rebecca North, and she had long since ceased to waste 









THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 


35 


words upon it. Her bald was not supplemented 

by any gracious smile or intonation. Persis proceeded 
to supply the graciousness. “I am Persis Thrale, and 
I have come to see you. ” 

Miss North had often said that nothing could sur- 
prise her, but her astonishment now was in evidence. 
The courtesy of her breeding, for she was clearly a 
gentlewoman, at once brought an invitation to en- 
ter. 

“Will you walk in ? My sister is here. Sister Susan, 
this is Miss Persis Thrale ; it is longer than our time 
since Norths and Thrales had anything to do with each 
other.” 

“Yet if we go back to my great-grandfather,” said 
Persis smiling, “we shall be — the same person !” 

Miss Susan laughed a little, but Miss Rebecca said, 
“Well, it goes without saying that some persons are 
their own worst enemies. ” 

“In our family, relations are not plenty enough to 
permit us to be enemies,” insisted Persis cordially. “Do 
you know, two or three days ago, I found you and my- 
self in an old lawsuit !” 

“That was a dear lawsuit to us, or rather to my 
father; the loss of it broke his heart,” said Miss Rebecca, 
pressing her thin lips together. 

“Oh dear me !” sighed Persis, “that makes it worse 
than I thought. I supposed it was only the money; 
but when it comes to broken hearts — and lives — it is 
much worse.” 

“And, sister Rebecca,” suggested Miss Susan, “we 


36 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


know, of course, that this little cousin had nothing to 
do with it ; she is quite a young girl. ” 

‘ ‘ But when I read the case in the Records I felt that 
your side did not get justice. Legal forms, no doubt, 
were with the decision of the court, but real intentions 
must have been with your side. ” 

“It is too late to discuss it ; the case has been de- 
cided, the fortune awarded and spent. Will you excuse 
us if we go on with our work ? This is our busy season 
and we must fill our orders.'’ 

The two sisters were seated by a large table, an old 
carved, solid mahogany dining-table, come down from 
the period of their family splendor. It was covered with 
the dainty debris of artificial flower making, while here 
and there, out of harm’s way about the room, were paper 
boxes of artificial flowers, fruit and pompons — creations 
of silk, velvet, muslin, feathers — most exquisitely made. 

“I shall love to see you work. I never saw anything 
more beautiful ! I did not know that such delicate 
work was done in this country. I have seen the flower- 
makers in London and Paris, and envied their skill. ” 
“We learned of a French flower-maker,” said Miss 
Susan, busily tinting a bunch of grapes. “There is not 
much of such work done here. We get about all we 
can do, for ours is equal to the best imported work. ” 
“That is what Katherine said : the really skilled work- 
er in any line can get work. ” 

“Well, usually,” said Miss Rebecca. “Who is 
Katherine ? Your sister ?” 

“Katherine Clarke is a friend of mine who does 


THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 


37 


tailors’ work. I wish you knew her ; she is so bright and 
brave. I have no sister — no relations at all, unless you 
will let me be your cousin. Just now you said the 
money the case was about was all spent, but it is not. 
None of it is spent. I have not even used all the in- 
come. I have not known what to do with it. ” 

“Not known — and the world so full of need ! Are 
you blind and deaf? You do n’t look it,” cried Miss North. 

“No, no, it is only that she is so young,” said Miss 
Susan. 

“Well, Susan and I would not have had a far cry to 
find out what to do with all the money we could get ! 
How often we have talked about it, as we sat here mak- 
ing flowers, that if we had had the Thrale money we 
would have made the world the better for it ; we would 
have helped people to help themselves ; we would 
not have let the interest roll up on the principal — saying 
we did not know what to do with it. ” 

“Sister Rebecca,” said Miss Susan mildly, “that is 
because we have lived here in the midst of need and 
know all about it, being a part of it. If we had had 
the Thrale money, and been brought up in affluence, 
perhaps we too would have gone riding about in our 
carriage, and been waited on by servants, and might 
have never known what need there was in the world. ” 
Miss Rebecca, fabricating a scarlet poppy with a 
blue-black heart, sniffed dissent. Persis laughed out — 
“I didn’t come in a carriage. I don’t keep one. 1 
came in the street car. I have not even a house. I board. ” 
“No home,” said Miss Rebecca, winding green silk 


38 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


on the wire stem of her poppy. “No home, and no 
sister ! I do n’t know but I pity you, for all the Thrale 
money. ” 

“But, my dear girl, why do you not have the com- 
forts you can afford?” queried Miss Susan, critically 
eying the bloom on her grapes. 

“ Oh I have comforts enough, ” said Persis ; ‘ ‘ the board- 
ing house is comfortable to luxury, and when I want a 
carriage I have only to send around to the livery stable. 
You see, it is lonesome for a young woman to have an 
establishment of her own, and difficult. There is the 
matter of the stables ; the coachmen are sure you do n’t 
know about things, and they sell the oats, and feed 
arsenic to the horses to make them sleek, and one is 
kept in a worry all the time. I have felt it the easiest 
way just to live as I do.” 

“But God does not put people into the world just 
to have an easy time of it,” said Miss Rebecca. 

‘ ‘ That is true, and since two days I have been look- 
ing at things in a different light. I see it is not enough 
merely to live without doing any harm ; we must live to 
do some positive good. If the Householder should come 
to me now for an account he would find my pound 
wrapped up in a napkin ; but I am going to unwrap it 
just as fast as ever I can, and keep it moving until 
it shines bright in dark places. I am making a plan 
for using my money in good work, and as you have 
studied these questions, and know all about them — ” 

“Oh no, indeed, only a little about them,” said Miss 
Rebecca, highly gratified. 


THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 


39 


“Much more than I do, at least. Why cannot you 
give experience to the work, and I give money, and all 
of us work together just as we did in my great-grand- 
father’s time, when the experience and the money walked 
under one hat 

“Of course, any thing we can tell you,” said Miss 
Rebecca. ‘ ‘ But you see we are working women, and we 
have to keep very closely at work to cover our expenses 
and lay up a little sum to keep us in our old age.” 

“Yes, I see. As soon as I get my plan into a little 
better shape I could talk over all that with you. I want 
to be friends, relations, fellow-workers with you. I 
know I should like you. I hope you would like me,” 
and she gave one of her winning smiles. 

“As if we could help it, my dear!” cried Miss 
Susan. 

“If you could come and spend the day with me and 
talk it over,” said Persis. 

“Oh, impossible — we could not leave our orders 
unfilled.” 

“Then, if I might come and spend the day with 
you. ” 

“We have not the time — or anything for you to 
eat,” said Miss Rebecca bluntly. 

To Persis this bluntness was refreshing. “I want 
to see you for a special purpose,” she said, “to talk over 
a plan for doing real good. I want your help, and your 
opinions. It is just the true Sabbath day work, so cannot 
you come on Sunday ? Come in time to go to church 
with me; you will like Dr. Bond.” 


40 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“We have heard him,” said Miss Rebecca; “but 
we cannot leave our own little church, out here, for 
morning service. The congregations are small, and 
every one is missed. Besides, we teach in the Sunday- 
school at nine.” 

‘ ‘ Then meet me at my boarding-house as soon as 
you can after service. I am at home by one. Then we 
will have dinner and can talk about my plan as late as 
you think it well to stay.” 

“We can do that, I am sure, very gladly, sister 
Rebecca,” said Miss Susan; and Miss Rebecca, who 
was fearful of conceding too much to the Thrale side of 
the question, with some grim hesitation finally con- 
sented. 

That visit to the Misses North was paid on 
Wednesday ; Thursday morning Persis and a note- 
book spent in the empty house on Gardner Street, 
and in making a call in Ramsay Street as she went 
home. 

It was then she discovered the absence of Mrs. 
Gayley’s machine, and remarked on the bareness of her 
room. 

“The machine, the clock, the bureau, the dishes 
and the rest of the things are in that teacup on the 
shelf,” remarked Trinka; and then Persis made her first 
acquaintance with pawnbrokerage. Trinka, old with 
the oldness that poverty induces, took down the cracked 
cup and showed the dirty tickets. “This one, the 
clock, so much ; that one, the bureau, so much more — 
you understand ; these, the dishes. They do n't give 


THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 4 1 

much, you know, and so it is easier to get them back, if 
you can, and yet you pretty nearly almost never do/' 

It required very little arithmetic to sum up the total 
of these beggarly bits of pasteboard ; and to hand Mrs. 
Gayley a bank-bill and tell her to go at once to redeem 
her pledges was just as easy. An hour afterwards, as 
Persis sat talking with Katherine and Annie Clarke, she 
heard a man slowly climbing the stairs carrying Mrs. 
Gayley's recovered property. 

“You'd think it poor trash if you saw it," said 
Annie, “but it is much to her ; it is part of her history ; 
it was paid for once by her parents and husband ; that 
shabby little clock is as much a treasured memento to her 
as a gold spoon or a miniature on ivory might be to you. 
Pawnbrokers' shops are full of these wrecks of heart- 
life. How often I wish I could scatter all the things 
back where they came from !" 

“You must not forget that many of the pledges are 
not heart-relics at all, but pickings and stealings," said 
Katherine, the practical. 

On Friday morning Persis was back in Ramsay 
Street. She handed Annie a cluster of carnations on 
whose scarlet and fragrant beauty lay a few snowflakes, 
the first of the season, that had been aimlessly drifting 
about on the sharp November air. Then, leaning back 
in her chair, Persis began to talk, to unfold a plan ; soon 
Annie, with shining eyes and a little glow of color on 
her thin cheeks, sat up straight to listen ; and then 
Katherine's feet ceased to press the treadle, the swift 
wheel stopped, the needle stayed in the seam of the little 


42 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


sleeve. And finally Persis said, “Katherine, can you 
come over and look at that house with me ? Have you 
time 

“Time!’’ said Katherine, springing up; “I’d take 
time, if I did n’t make another pair of trousers or an- 
other little jacket this blessed day !” 

Persis dropped a box of chocolate bon-bons into 
Annie’s lap and went off with Katherine. 

That afternoon Dr. Bond was leaning back in that 
big purple chair in Persis Thrale’s parlor which so well 
suited the anatomy of Mr. Inskip. The doctor was 
very comfortable, but he did not realize how comforta- 
ble ; he was absorbed in the “plan of campaign” which 
Persis was detailing. “Ido n’t expect to make a revo- 
lution in city philanthropies ; I do n’t expect to help 
the thousands ; I only expect to do something for a few, 
to make a few dozens of lives easier, more profitable to 
themselves and others, and their influence on the future 
proportionately better. If some one had rescued ‘ Mar- 
garet, the mother of criminals,’ while yet her childish 
possibilities were with her, then all the line of criminals 
sprung from her might have been saved to the State. I 
can give a few people hope and heart and healthful sur- 
roundings ; I can provide some children with — a child- 
hood ; I can give one neighborhood a centre of crystal- 
lization into something higher and happier than they 
have known ; that is all. But it is enough, I think, to 
be worth doing, and to do it I am going down to live 
among those I wish to help.” 

‘ ‘ I have long wished to find some one to work in 


THE PLAN OF A CAMPAIGN. 


43 


that way,” said Dr. Bond, ^‘and I believe in a short 
time, when you have shown the possibility of such a 
plan, others will follow your example, undertaking sim- 
ilar work. And where exactly is this house that is to be 
your home ?” 

Persis told him. ‘‘Do you know people in that 
neighborhood 

“Yes; it is near where Serena Bowles lives ; I have 
often gone there to take a lesson from her ; and widow 
Mumsey too. God has his hidden ones in that quar- 
ter, and I think in you he is answering some of their 
prayers. ” 

‘ ‘ Then it is not a neighborhood where it is impossi- 
ble to live ?” 

“I think, really, there is no such neighborhood. 
Even the worst and lowest slums make room for light. 
Wherever a generous intention, a simple godly life of 
unselfish helpfulness go, the worst and hardest will step 
aside to let them pass and kneel to kiss their garment's 
hem.” 

After Dr. Bond had gone Persis went to Harriet 
Hughes. “You have mourned here long enough, come 
into my room ; it is time to arise and build your sister's 
monument. I have a plan of a campaign for you to 
listen to.” 


44 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER IV. 

“wo, GO, LO.” 

“ No eyes beheld the pitying face, 

The answer none might understand, 

But dimly through the silent space 
Was seen the stretching of a hand.” 

About noon on Saturday Mr. Inskip’s carriage called 
for Persis Thrale. “ I have given myself a half-holiday,” 
he said, “to take you to my house, and to hear all the 
plans which are rioting in your brain. You made your 
visit. How was the frozen North ?” 

‘ ‘ Thawing, ” said Persis. ‘ ‘ They are coming to spend 
the day with me to-morrow. We shall make common 
cause; it will no longer be ‘North vs. Thrale,’ but 
* North et Thrale. ’ ” 

“Move cautiously, I beg of you,” said Mr. Inskip. 
“ Remember that at the time of the case the property in 
dispute was much smaller than it is now. What you 
have represents not merely what was left by your great- 
grandfather, but it represents the conserving and up- 
building forces of three generations, the tax-paying, the 
judicious investments, the continuous improvements of 
your grandfather and father, and the handsome savings 
of your own long minority. Consider all that.” 

“I do,” said Persis. “I see you are afraid that I 
will recklessly give away property of which I do not 
know the value. On the contrary, my property never 


45 


wo, GO, LO.” 

before appeared so valuable, so desirable ; because it 
now represents to me the power of accomplishing good. 

^‘Tell me exactly what you do mean.” 

“I mean to stop idling and go to work.” 

“Where ? and how .?” 

‘ ‘ I mean to renovate that Gardner Street house, to 
make it a comfortable home, furnish it, and go there to 
live. As the house is very large I shall rent the third 
and fourth stories, giving a few working-women really 
pleasant and healthy homes, with modern conveniences, 
for a sum which will represent cost but not profit. As 
I shall not wish to live alone, I shall ask Misses Rebecca 
and Susan North to join me in my undertaking and live 
with me, carrying out some schemes of philanthropy of 
their own. ” I 

“But how do you know that you can live with 
them ? They may prove intolerable to you. ” 

“I hope I am not so crotchety that two upright, 
refined Christian women would prove intolerable to 
me. 

“Consider that you and your ways might prove in- 
tolerable to them. The plan might be broken up, and 
then, their present mode of life having been once aban- 
doned, the way of return might be difficult. They might 
have resigned the possible to try the impossible. ” 

‘ ‘ I have thought of that. I have thought too that 
here are two ladies of my own blood, descended from the 
ancestor whose money I enjdy, and these ladies are poor, 
are working hard for a maintenance, have nothing for 
old age. What would be meagre to some would be 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


46 

wealth to them, considering their habits of life, I pro- 
pose to right an old wrong and give them out and out 
ten thousand dollars, so that they shall feel independent 
and that when they plan to do a little good they can do 
it on their own resources. Ten thousand is enough ?” 

“Ample ; and you can easily spare that, if you don’t 
go on scattering ten thousands. ” 

“No, I shall not. I have not earned this property, 
it came to me by inheritance. For some reason God 
made it a direct gift to me, and I am, no doubt, respon- 
sible for its use. I shall not get rid of the responsibility 
by donating the property, I shall administer it. ” ^ 

“That is w'ell. It occurs to me that, shut up with 
two old ladies, surrounded by people of a class and 
methods so different from your own, you will be lonely. 

I “Harriet Hughes is going with me. She is a girl 
whom I really like. She wants to undertake Kinder- 
garten and Nursery work for children. She has a little 
income; she can get on nicely if I provide our home.” 

“Have you thought that free kindergarten and nur- 
sery, like many other free things, may be undervalued 
“Oh, our system will be elastic: those who can pay 
are to pay according to their abilities. Even four or 
five cents a week, duly handed in by a child, will give it 
the noble feeling of paying its way and needing to get 
all it can for its money. ” 

“I see your native level-headedness gleaming through 
your plan here and there,” laughed Mr. Inskip. “It is 
now about four years since you came into the city to 
board and devote your time to art and literature. What 


“ wo, GO, LO.” 47 

guarantee have you that this present plan will have a 
longer continuity ?” 

“I might suggest my own increasing age and judg- 
ment, also the more important form of the proposed 
work; but if I find my plan chimerical, and give it up, no 
one will be harmed; by just so long as they have received 
a benefit they will be bettered. In renting rooms I bind 
myself only for month by month, as other landlords 
who have monthly tenants do. Miss Hughes will lose 
nothing by me in any event ; the Misses North will 
gain, going out with a competence where they came 
in with nothing : the kindergartens and nurseries, the 
evening classes, the pleasant entertainments, are not 
pledged to go on for ever, like the brook ; even if, like 
Narcissa’s, their ‘date is short,’ they will be a good 
thing during their continuance. Those evening enter- 
tainments, to put a little joy into treadmill, joyless lives, 
will be fine, I can tell you. Harriet Hughes with her 
elocution and singing will be grand there ; I have no 
doubt that our audiences will be kind enough to think 
my chalk drawings and violin worth applauding.” i 

“You don’t — you surely don’t — mean to set up an 
entertainment hall !” groaned Mr. Inskip. 

“Only at home, in our own sitting-room, our parlor 
in the real old Norman meaning of the term ; where we 
will make our friends and neighbors welcome, and enter- 
tain them as other house-mistresses do.” 

“Oh!” said Mr. Inskip relieved. “I didn’t know 
but you meant to start a Palace of Delight down Gard- 
ner Street way, and be your own performers. ” 


48 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“ ‘ We do things better than that in France/ ” laughed 
Persis. “I think, myself, that our neighbors will like 
to show off for themselves a little and do some of 
the entertaining ; do n't you ?" 

Mr. Inskip’s head was sunk in meditation and his 
coat collar ; he mumbled something inarticulate. Final- 
ly he demanded, What set you at all this?” 

^‘I have been dissatisfied with my life for a long 
time, ” said Persis ; “it seemed so purposeless, so little 
worthy of one who had ability to work and was sur- 
rounded by so much need. The sight of sorrow and 
suffering has always been so distressing to me, squalor 
and unthrift, to say nothing of vice, have been so repel- 
lent to me, that I kept on my pleasanter way in spite 
of the faultfinding of my conscience. Then — when 
Miss Hughes was brought home lying in such profound 
peace, her busy hands unstirred by any need, her ears 
deaf to all appeal — I realized how soon life’s working 
days are ended, and how final is that ending ; no relent- 
ing, no return to accomplish the neglected task. I 
asked myself what I had been doing for God and for 
humanity. It is the old story of ‘wo, go, lo.’ ‘Wo 
unto the world because of offences. ’ ‘ Go, teach. ’ ‘ Lo, 

I am with you alway.’ There is the need, the method, 
the supply of power. This is not really a sudden reso- 
lution of mine, I have been growing up to it for some 
time. It was hard to relinquish what I like and go 
down and live with those I wished to help. But it seemed 
to me that that was the only way to do really telling 
work. We cannot stand afar off and throw alms, •as 


49 


'‘wo, GO, LO.” 

one throws bones to a dog ; one must dwell among the 
needy ones, as Christ to save flesh dwelt in flesh. You 
spoke of classes and methods, just now. I want, for a 
time, to forget any class but the human class or the class 
Christian. I want to be large hearted and tolerant as to 
methods, relaxing a little of my own and lifting up 
others’, if I may. ” 1 

“You know really nobody in that neighborhood,” 
sighed Mr. Inskip. He had been used to considering 
this girl only in the purple, fine linen and gold spoons 
system. 

“There are two friends of Dr. Bond’s living there: 
Mrs. Serena Bowles and Mrs. Mumsey,” said Persis mildly. 

“ Oh ! Then they may be able to keep you in coun- 
tenance a little. ” 

“I asked Dr. Bond what I could do for them, and 
he thought Mrs. Bowles would like to take in my wash- 
ing, and that Mrs. Mumsey could do my white sewing 
and get better prices than the shops give her,” said Per- 
sis with malice. 

“Well, Persis,” said Mr. Inskip, looking from the 
carriage to see if they were not nearly at his home, “go 
your way, and may God go with you and own the work 
of your hands. I shall not interfere unless I see your 
health or your property going to waste. Then I shall 
make myself very conspicuous in your affairs. I remem- 
ber my promises to your parents, and I shall fulfil 
them.” 

“As you always have, dear Mr. Inskip,” cried Persis. 
“Meanwhile your favorite purple chair and the silver 

New Samaritan. A 


50 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


tray and the Sevres china cups, and the best Oolong tea, 
and the china jar of Albert biscuit, will be ready for you 
as usual ; and by degrees you may become reconciled 
to my new way of living. ” 

‘ ‘ It seems a true providence that you have found the 
Misses North to live with you,” said Mr. Inksip. 

“ Yes : I had about made up my mind to get a couple 
of Salvation Army lassies to come into the scheme and 
live with me. They understand much of the needs and 
the work necessary in meeting the needs. As it is, 
I mean to make great friends with them and get all 
the help I can from them. ” 

“You spoke of renovating the Gardner Street house 
and renting the rooms at cost to working girls. Even 
at cost that rent would probably be more than most of 
them could pay. But what do you reckon as cost?” 

Here Persis had the grace to blush and hang her head 
a little. 

“Taxes and repairs,” quoth Persis; “reckoned on 
the whole house, and adjusted according to the rooms.” 

“And nothing said about the original investment, 
or the property tied up lying idle, eh? That's busi- 
ness!” 

“For this one piece of property I thought I could 
doit,” said Persis. “If the property keeps itself up 
on its rents I will ask no more of it. The interest rep- 
resented can be the sacrifice on the altar, you know.” 

“I see — and your life and labor can be the incense 
and the oil and the wheaten cakes thereupon.” 

“I hope so.” 


51 


“wo, GO, LO.” 

“Perhaps at the end of all it may be shown to be 
the better way : the life worth living, the work worth 
doing. " 

“There are the Clarke sisters that I told you about ; 
they live in a dark, sunless room that is ruining Kath- 
erine’s eyes and has entirely broken down Annie’s 
health with inflammatory rheumatism and bronchitis. 
I ’m going to put them in a south-west room, flooded 
by sunshine all day long and kept at an even tempera- 
ture ; and we ’ll see if that does not prove a Florida to 
Annie and cure them both. That Gardner Street prop- 
erty has all sunny rooms ; stands finely on a corner, 
does n’t it !” 

“It has always rented so well,” said Mr. Inskip; 
reluctantly finding hope of gains in that quarter gone 
for Persis. 

Persis had made up her mind that the Misses 
North should share her work in Gardner Street, but how 
to bring them into it was the question. To deal with 
Miss Rebecca evidently required much tact. A little 
after one on Sunday afternoon the two sisters entered 
Persis’ sitting-room, neat and prim as a pair of old- 
fashioned dolls. Their gowns, shiny black silks that had 
seen service for a dozen years. Paisley shawls of equal 
date, little black silk bonnets made by Miss Susan’s 
careful fingers, their narrow crimped white ruffles, their 
prunella boots at a dollar a pair, their smoothly-brushed, 
tightly-twisted gray hair, were in peculiar contrast to 
the mundane glories of Persis’ rooms : the floating lace 
curtains, the soft rich carpets, the silken divans, the 


52 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


books, pictures, knick-knacks — the purple chair. Obliv- 
ious apparently of their brilliant surroundings, with the 
ease of thorough good breeding, the Misses North gave 
to the waiting hands of Persis their bonnets and shawls 
and made themselves calmly at home. 

‘ ‘ I feel as if I cannot waste a minute. I want to 
talk with you — to hear you talk, to listen to your plans 
of helping people ! And first, while we talk, here is tea 
and bread-and-butter for us all ; for our Sunday dinner 
hour is three o’clock — much later than yours I am 
sure — and I am always so hungry when I come in from 
church.” 

Persis knew that nothing so ruffles one’s disposition 
as hunger ; that nothing so mollifies one’s temper as 
a good cup of tea — provided one is a tea lover. First of 
all things she must put her guests in a balmy frame of 
mind. Her method worked to a charm. Sipping tea, 
gently permeated by the warmth of the tea and the 
fragrant steam-heated atmosphere of the room, daintily 
eating dainty slices of bread and gilt-edged butter, the 
spirits of the Misses North, who had been faint and hungry 
when they came in, revived. The soft chairs suited them, 
the questions of Persis as she sipped tea and consumed 
bread and butter beguiled them, and their cherished 
plans, those dear air castles built upon them, were re- 
vealed to Persis almost unaware. 

They had solaced many hours of toil telling each 
other what they would do if they were rich enough ; 
and now they told Persis. The possibility of performance 
seemed no nearer than ever, but the girl was so interested 


53 


wo, GO, LO.” 

that they could not refuse to speak of this choice vision 
of their lives, which had never been glorified into a re- 
ality. 

Our wish, our plan,” said Miss Rebecca, “has been 
to help people, some few people whom we could reach, 
to help themselves. We have said, suppose that we 
had enough to live upon simply, so that we could use 
our time in teaching these other people, girls, you know, 
instead of, as now, using all our time to earn our bread. 
We have thought if we had a house, and two work- 
rooms that we could use, Susan, who is the more skill- 
fill in flower work, could teach that business to chosen 
girls who had a real gift for it. Girls must be neat 
and quick-fingered, and have a natural eye for color 
and a real love of flowers, or they cannot make them 
well.” 

“And the girls that I would choose for learners,” said 
Miss Susan eagerly, her faded face lighting up with 
benevolence, “should be girls who are little able to 
earn a good living in any harder way, delicate girls, 
lame or deformed — for I have found that such girls 
usually have a taste for nice, dainty occupations ; girls 
who from some constitutional blemish cannot be clerks 
or work in factories.” 

“That,” said Persis, “is such a good thought — ^that 
their very burden of infirmity may open to them an 
easier way of life ; it is in the line of compensation, you 
see. And you would not teach flower work. Cousin 
Rebecca ?” 

The name of kinship slipped so easily over her lips ; 


54 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Persis had such a calm, natural way of saying kindly, 
gracious things. She had cultivated it ; instinct had 
shown her from the first that it was a choice helpful 
gift. 

The Misses North started and flushed a little with 
pleasure. “One would be enough for teaching flower 
work. I had, in our planning, you know, said I would 
take the other work-room and have a dressmaking 
establishment. I know a lady, a member of our church, 
who would be just the one to oversee the work. She is 
first-class in dressmaking, a beautiful fitter and finisher, 
and a Christian woman who would help the girls on and 
up in every way. It has been so pleasant to plan, for 
all we knew all the time that we never could do what 
we planned. We have been ready, but the Lord has 
not wanted that kind of work from us, he has not led 
the way.” 

“But now if he should give you opportunity, just the 
opportunity you have fancied — the house, the work- 
rooms, the capital to live upon — then you would feel that 
he approved the plan, and called you to carry it out.” 

“I don’t see how it could be,” said Miss Susan. 

“This way, perhaps. I have come to an end of my 
idling and am going to work. You were right the 
other day in saying that the Lord required more dili- 
gent stewardship of me, and had given me property to 
use for him. I have a house in Gardner Street ; it is 
now empty, and yesterday I set the workmen at it to 
repair it, make it clean, comfortable and healthful. I 
am going to live there, right among the people that I 


55 


“ wo, GO, LO/‘ 

wish to help. My plans do not seem to be so well 
matured as yours, but what I want is that you should go 
there to become one family with me. You can have the 
two work-rooms, and open your training classes and carry 
out your plans, and I will help you as you ask me to, 
and not interfere ; and by degrees my own especial work 
will open up. And to make it possible that you should 
do this, that you may be free to spend the time, I want 
to set right a part of what has long been wrong, and 
make over to you ten thousand dollars for your ^sole 
use and behoof" as the lawyers say. I think my great 
grandfather would have felt sorry to have the property 
as it is now, all on one side of the house. I am sure he 
meant more for his daughter, and it is only right that I 
should do this : right, and easy."" 

Miss Rebecca turned crimson. Miss Susan became 
pale. Ten thousand dollars ! It was as the wealth of 
the Indies. 

‘ ‘ What are you saying ?"" cried Miss Rebecca. ‘ ‘ What 
do you mean ?"" 

^‘I say you are to have ten thousand dollars of 
the Thrale money ; and I shall have the affair con- 
cluded to-morrow. I can do what I say, because I 
am twenty-five years of age and the money is all in 
my own right and available, and I hope, my cousins, 
you will not put any false notions in the way of my 
doing my duty. ’" 

Miss Rebecca set her lips, and was silent. Miss 
Susan said, “Sister Rebecca, this seems to me to be the 
true hand of God.'" 


56 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


‘ ‘ Perhaps this is the very way God has been keeping 
in reserve to give you opportunity to do the good you 
have planned, ” said Persis ; * ‘ but I want to make it clear 
that this restoring to you ten thousand, which I think 
of right belongs to you, has nothing to do with the 
living with me in Gardner Street. The money will be 
made over to you entirely, and’ then you can do as you 
like about coming to Gardner Street and taking up 
work there, and helping me in my work. If you go 
there, and by and by feel that the place, or the work, 
or the company, do not suit you, or you would like to 
be alone, there will be nothing to hinder you in making 
a change any more than there is to hinder you now in 
changing houses, or employers, or employment. We 
shall be perfectly free. As long as we live in the Gard- 
ner Street house I will be at the expense of the estab- 
lishment, and the style in which I mean to carry it on 
will be plain but comfortable. I should like you to 
go to-morrow and see the house. Also there will be 
some papers to sign, about the ten thousand, at Mr. In- 
skip’s office. ” 

Sister Susan,” said Miss Rebecca with a surprised 
air, ‘ ‘ it seems that we can now afford to take time even 
in the busy season. ” 

“The Gardner Street house will be ready, I expect, 
on New Year’s Day,” said Persis. “I hope you will 
like it.” 

“I am sure we cannot help liking it,” said Miss 
Susan. 

“And the time before New Year’s will enable us to 


“ wo, GO, LO.” 57 

fill our orders, sister Susan; we cannot break our en- 
gagements. ” 

‘ ‘ Certainly not. And we shall depend on these same 
firms^for work for my flower workers. Oh, Rebecca, can 
this be true ! Shall we really work out our plans !” 

‘^It seems so,” said Miss Rebecca, “somewheres. 
Only I need to know more about your house, Persis, 
and your plans, and the people you \yill have about you. 
I hope you have not been too hasty. I may not feel that 
we can go there with you. ” 

“I shall be so sorry,” said Persis smoothly. “But 
if you will not, then I must fall back on my other 
thought; of getting two Salvation Army women, of the 
older and experienced ones, to go with me. In that 
house I expect to sleep New Year’s night, and begin my 
new work with the new year. ” 

“I will go there with you to-morrow to look at 
things,” said Miss Rebecca; “Susan will agree to do 
whatever I do.” 

“Indeed,” said Miss Susan, “lam agreed already, 
and I feel like singing, ‘Praise God, from whom all 
blessings flow. ’ ” 

“My friend Miss Harriet Hughes will go with us 
to-morrow,” said Persis. “Harriet is going to live 
there with me ; the work for children will belong to her. 

I ’m leaning to the work among the mothers, the home- 
work ; but I want to talk that over further with you. 
And to-morrow I hope you ’ll take time to go with me 
to see Katherine and Annie Clarke, my friends who do 
tailor work and are to have the very sunniest room 


58 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


there is — right at the top of the house: three windows, 
south and west, and a skylight ! And there is Mrs. 
Gayley, too, a widow, and Trinka, her deformed little 
girl. I so hope she will be fit for the flower work ! 
There are twenty-four rooms in the house, besides the 
basement. I shall take in only widows or single women; 
the people with no one to fight for them !” 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 


59 


CHAPTER V. 

SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 

“ A charge to keep I have: 

A God to glorify ; 

A never-dying soul to save 
And fit it for the sky.” 

Which of the three was the happiest that cold, bright 
Monday morning: Persis, or Miss Rebecca, or Miss 
Susan ? Persis, who felt for the time as if she were do- 
ing a work large enough to satisfy her, and whose cheeks 
and eyes shone, as in a handsome carriage well-pro- 
vided with fur robes she drove to the door of the small 
house where flower work had been carried on for ten 
years. This was the carriage, this the driver, these the 
horses which Miss Thrale always had from the livery- 
stable, and she looked the image of comfort seated wait- 
ing for Miss Rebecca. Miss Rebecca came out in her 
black silk, little black bonnet and Paisley shawl, and a 
muff of many years’ date ; she held her head a trifle 
higher than usual and stepped with a little more than 
her usual dignity, as a scion of the Thrale-Norths come 
to her own again, and before the eyes of admiring neigh- 
bors going to ride in a carriage as was her just right. 
Miss Susan, accompanying her sister to the door — the 
tip of her nose red and her eyes tearful from the keen 
frost of December air — ^joyful to see Persis, whom she 
loved already, proud and happy to think that Rebecca 


6o 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


was esteemed as she should be, intent on hurrying back 
to the big table to work fast enough for two on those 
orders. Perhaps, after all. Miss Susan was the happiest 
of all, because she had lost self out of sight entirely. 
She had several callers that morning, and chatted with 
them as she worked ; and Miss Susan never hinted of 
the ten thousand dollars or the home on Gardner Street. 

Meanwhile Miss Rebecca was in a mood to be 
pleased with everything. They stopped for Harriet 
Hughes at a store where she was pricing kindergarten 
supplies, and Miss Rebecca was pleased with Harriet. 
“A nice, plain, sensible girl,” she said to herself; “not 
handsome, like my cousin Persis — she is a real Thrale — 
but a nice girl; a girl I can get along with.” 

“You 11 find the Gardner Street house in great con- 
fusion, ” said Persis. ‘ ‘ As soon as I had made up my 
mind what I wanted I put a contractor at work with 
plenty of men. I was so glad I could, for this is the 
slack season and this contractor is a very good work- 
man ; not rich like many of them, and he has been un- 
fortunate. Dr. Bond told me of him ; he is a teacher 
in the afternoon Sabbath-school. He was so glad of 
work that would help him keep his men on wages for a 
while longer ! Mr. Inskip had had good renters in the 
house and it is not in nearly so bad order as it might be. 
There had been a Chinese laundry in the basement and 
a barber-shop with two bath-rooms, so there is a begin- 
ning of things as I shall want them. I am having all 
the ceilings given a coat of hard finish, all the walls 
scraped, washed with disinfectants and papered ; all the 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 6 1 

woodwork, floors and all, given three coats of good, 
thick paint. Mr. Gleason said I would cause a rise in 
the paint market ! I want the place to be a kind of 
Castle of Health and Happiness. Here we are. Peters, 
bring the carriage back at twelve.” 

The house was filled with busy workmen. Some were 
replacing cracked or broken window-panes ; others were 
scraping walls, others re-hanging doors and re-setting 
windows ; the plumbers were looking after pipes, traps, 
drains, setting two new bath-tubs, and restoring sinks 
and stationary wash-tubs. 

“We’ll begin at the bottom and work up,” said 
Persis. 

“Cousin Rebecca, our private family will be four: 
you and Cousin Susan, Harriet and I. Here in the front 
basement is our dining-room and kitchen, with tubs and 
laundry stove, and here is our bath-room — I ’m having 
the floor tiled, you see. This is our cellar, and this 
other cellar is for the tenants of the rooms, and this big 
washing-room with tubs and stove is also for them, and 
this bath-room. All who live in this house, you see, can 
have, free of charge, opportunity to be clean themselves 
and have clean clothes. Look here : I am having an ele- 
vator put in. ” 

“Aren’t they terribly dangerous?” asked Miss Re- 
becca. 

“Hardly as dangerous as going up and down many 
stairs with heavy burdens,” said Persis ; “besides, safety is 
to be considered before speed in this elevator. Now let 
us take the next floor, Notice that the hall runs clear 


I 


62 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


through, and there is a door on each street. Harriet, we 
will have a blue and gold sign, ‘ Kindergarten ’ over the 
side-street door, and this back room will be for the kin- 
dergarten. See how well lighted it is. The next room. 
Cousin Rebecca, is for the flower work, and I am having 
an arch cut between that and the front room, so that 
when we need space for a social gathering we can throw 
the two together. One chief part of my plan is to have 
pleasant things going on here, so that these poor tired 
women will have something cheery and attractive to re- 
member, talk about and look forward to. This front 
room will be our family sitting-room, where we shall see 
our friends and try and make a centre of social life. 
These three rooms across the hall are our private rooms, 
our bed-rooms ; this one opposite the sitting room is 
mine, the next Harriet’s, the last one is for you and 
Cousin Susan, as it is the largest ; and I wish, while you 
are here, you would pick out the paint and paper you 
prefer ; and you too, Harriet. I think people are health- 
ier and can work better if their surroundings please them. 
We shall all be more efficient if our paint and wall-paper 
suit our particular tastes. ” 

“ I do n’t know but there is something in that, ” said 
Miss Rebecca, “but I cannot remember that it ever 
occurred to me before. The fact is, I have all my life 
been so hard put to it to get the merest food and shelter 
that I have never thought of gratifying taste. I ’m glad 
if we can now, for Susan’s sake. Susan thinks more 
of such things.” 

“We must all think of them,” said Persis. “For 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 63 

my part, I am an ardent lover of beauty, and, I think, on 
the highest example. God loves beauty well — we can- 
not doubt that when we see his creations — and he expects 
us to find rest and comfort and pleasure in the beauty 
which he has made. I know, when I have been sad or 
sick, beautiful flowers, or sweet sounds, or choice fra- 
grance, or some lovely view — or even a picture of such 
a view — has cheered me and done me more good than 
medicine. The Flower Mission recognizes that. I 
want our work here to bring the grace of beauty into 
lives that have supposed they were debarred from it. 
Now let us go up one flight and see the room over the 
sitting-room — the one I have reserved for your dress- 
making establishment, if you like it. Cousin Rebecca. 
Counting out the first floor and this dressmaking-room, 
we have seventeen rooms to let ; or rather, as we shall 
need one or two for the cook and janitress, we shall have 
fourteen or fifteen rooms, and you will see what clean, 
bright, well-aired wholesome rooms they will be. ” 

Persis ran from room to room delighted with her 
plan, her abounding health and hopefulness filling her 
with a joy that reflected itself in the sad face of Harriet 
and the staid features of Miss Rebecca. 

“Do you like it, cousin Rebecca she demanded. 

^ ‘ Do you think you can be happy here and carry out 
your plans, and find your air castles turned into a re- 
ality — the Gardner Street house ? Do you 

“Yes, yes,’’ said Miss North, carried away by her 
young kinswoman’s enthusiasm. “This is the very place 
for us. ” 


64 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“There’s the carriage back,” said Persis, looking 
out of a window. “Who would have thought we had 
been here for an hour and a half! Now we are to go to 
Ramsay Street for my friends the Clarkes, and then to a 
restaurant for dinner. I sent word about the dinner for 
five ; we are to have a private room. ” 

The wonders of Aladdin’s Lamp were as nothing to 
the wonders of this day to Miss Rebecca. The Clarke 
sisters were crowded into the carriage, and presently they 
were all seated at dinner, an incongruous group to look 
at : Persis in her garments of praise — silk, cashmere and 
sealskin ; the quaint, carefully-saved best of Miss Rebec- 
ca, the new tailor-made mourning of Harriet Hughes, the 
faded, nearly worn-out clothes of the Clarkes, The 
faces were so different also — Persis all health, courage, 
eagerness, fearing nothing ; Miss Rebecca, rigid, ever 
on the defensive, obliged, as she said, to hold her own, 
never forgetting what was due to herself as Miss North ; 
Harriet, a very plain girl, naturally aggressive, capable 
of softening into unlimited tenderness, sad now from a 
loss of which each day showed her increasingly the 
greatness ; finally these over-worked, under-fed, Clarke 
sisters, girls with whom the world had gone desperately 
hard until heart had nearly failed them, and who were 
suddenly finding in Persis the first strong hope and help 
of their lives. Oddly incongruous as the little group 
seemed they had a happy dinner. Persis gave full rein 
to her wit, Katherine Clarke had a brave way of always 
seizing the best, Harriet forgot her sorrow in trying to 
make the occasion bright to the Clarkes, while Miss 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 65 

Rebecca was slowly beguiled out of her stiffness and 
made merry with the rest. 

“If you '11 believe it, Susan," she said to her sister, 
when with her feet bn the stove hearth and a half-con- 
structed feather pompon in her hand she was recording 
the events of the day, “I no more remembered that 
I was in a public eating place, among strangers, only 
one of whom I 'd ever seen before : it just seemed as if I 
was at home somewhere, as if all my life I 'd known those 
girls — as if it was my company and I 'd asked them to 
dinner ! And I found myself talking and laughing, listen- 
ing and telling things. That Persis is the liveliest piece ! 
Some of the things she said fairly took my breath. 
When we sat down she looked about at the spread, and 
said as coolly, ‘ Nice dinner ; is n't it ! And we 're all 
hungry — two things to be thankful for. Cousin Re- 
becca, will you ask a blessing?' It fairly took my 
breath, for all I ask one here — in our way you know : 
just to bow heads and whisper a little. Well, I looked 
so aback, she went on as smooth, ‘ or I will ; it is my 
party ;' and so she asked the blessing as easy as to say, 
‘Will you pass the bread ?' or ‘Do you use cream and sugar 
in your tea?’" Yes, we did enjoy that dinner. I don’t 
reckon those Clarke girls had had such a meal ever in 
their lives. After we took them home, and left Miss 
Harriet at a dressmaker’s, we went to Mr. Inskip's 
office, and that matter of the ten thousand was done up 
as easy as changing a five dollar note. Dear me, Susan, 
I wondered if that could be myself coming down stairs 
a rich woman, as you may say, with plenty for old age." 
5 


New Samaritan. 


66 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“To think how the dear Lord has provided for us,” 
said Miss Susan hastily, polishing her eyes so that no 
stray drop might fall on a wreath of honey-suckle ; 
“and we have felt so fearsome, and hinted of the poor- 
house or the Home in our despondent days, and worked 
as if all the providing lay on us, while here our Heaven- 
ly Father had it all planned out for us. What a dear 
blessed girl that is !” 

“Yes, so she is. I don’t look at it as charity 
though, Susan, you mind that. It is only justice ; all 
said and done, it was no more than our due. ” 

“However that is, sister Rebecca, not every one 
thinks of doing justice to that extent. Oh, she is a dear, 
dear girl. ” 

“Yes, of course — and the girls she has picked out 
for the house so far are nice girls. I can live with them. 
Persis is a little heady, I fancy ; fond of running on in 
her own way. I do n’t know as I shall take very hearti- 
ly to her social evenings, inviting in all the neighbors 
and making free and easy. You and I, sister Susan, 
have always kept ourselves to ourselves. But then we 
can stay in our own room if w’e do n’t like the Socials. 

‘ ‘ Besides, we are not bound to stay in Gardner Street 
at all if it don’t turn out as we like it. I felt half 
sorry about that kindergarten work right there in the 
house. You know I am not over and above fond of 
children ; but you are — enough to make up for us both. 
As for our things, Persis said to bring what we wanted 
to and give away the rest, and she ’d put in all that was 
lacking. When we left Mr. Inskip’s she sent me home 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 6/ 

in the carriage and walked back near Gardner Street 
to see a woman named Serena Bowles. I do n’t know 
but Persis is one to take a little too freely to common 
people. ” 

“Why, sister Rebecca, it is written, ‘What God 
hath cleansed call not thou common. ’ ” 

“Of course, in one sense. But something is due to 
one’s family.” 

“The real family, sister Rebecca, is in Christ. ‘One 
is your Father, even God, and all ye are brethren.” 

Persis had climbed four pairs of stairs at 96 Webster 
Street, and as she finished the fourth flight she heard, 
through a door set ajar, a voice tired and not musical 
singing : 

“ A charge to keep I have: 

A God to glorify ; 

A never-dying soul to save 
And fit it for the sky.” 

She tapped at the door and the voice prolonged itself 
on the last note, without much change of tune, into 
“Come in.” 

Persis “came.” 

“Oh, now, I truly believe you’re the young lady 
that is coming to live on Gardner Street corner ! Well, 
I will sit down and rest a bit, and visit with you ! Here 
is a chair. You ’re not afraid of the clothes? They’re 
not to say real damp.” 

They seemed to be in a new kind of grove ; not a 
green grove but a white one, of newly laundried clothes. 


68 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


hanging on frames, ropes, pegs, chair-backs, door-cor- 
ners. Vision was in every direction intercepted, here 
by a shirt, there by a petticoat, or a row of towels, or 
aprons, or sheets ; window-sills and any other flat sur- 
faces were repositories of trays or platters holding 
handkerchiefs, napkins, bibs, caps. Persis remarked 
that even if the clothes were damp it would not do her 
any harm, and studied the kind, worn, wrinkled, but 
indomitably cheerful face of Serena Bowles. 

“ Dr. Bond told me about you, Mrs. Bowles.” 

^‘Now ! Law me ! Isn’t he a dear man ! Oh, the 
blessing he has been to me ! And Mrs. Bond as kind 
as kind ; and all the ladies of his church, that I know, 
so real good ; most of my work is for them. ” 

‘ ‘ Dr. Bond said you could tell me more about this 
neighborhood — Gardner, Webster and Ramsey Streets, and 
the alleys off them — than any one else, Mrs. Bowles.” 

“Being natural, as I’m, as you may say, the oldest 
inhabitant. I ’ve lived here five years, and that ’s a long, 
long time for this neighborhood. I ’m not given to 
moving, and when I ’m here year in and year out my 
folks all know where to find me. Jim Bowles gets pretty 
restive — he is that kind of a man ; made that way— but 
I says to him, ‘ Jim, we can’t move about ; it costs 
money and loses me patronage. Long as you can’t get 
work, Jim, we must stay where I can get it ; it ’s work 
or starve,’ I says. But I’m sorry for Jim ; a person with 
nothing to do is lonesome.” 

“ Is he out of work ? That is hard on you. Is work 
scarce ?” 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 69 

“Tears like it is always scarce for Jim. He's made 
that way. But he's a quiet, steady, honest man as is 
going. He is not very peart, Jim isn’t ; he's slow and 
he takes his time, and there ain’t much output to him ; 
so he do n’t get through as much in a day by about half 
as other men, and naturally he loses his place if he gets 
one. Folks want the stirring ones. I says to him, 

‘ Jim, if you ’d just offer to take half wages you ’d get all 
you earned as compared with the rest, and half a loaf’s 
better ’n no bread.’ But Jim, he allows he can’t tell 
folks he* do n’t consider he’s but half a man ! If some 
one would only take Jim right, and say, ‘Bowles, I 
haven’t full work for a man, and I don’t lay out to pay 
full wages ; but if you want to take what work I have on 
the half pay I feel able to give for it, and take your time 
and do it,’ why Jim would do what he did right up to 
the handle ; he does right what he does do. Often and 
often I ’ve caught myself praying, ‘ Lord, if you ’d send 
some one that was willing to let Jim work along his own 
slow easy way, seeing as it do n’t seem possible to stir 
him up, just send some one that will give him a little 
something regular, so he can potter on at it and get it 
done finally. ' That ’s the way I ’ve found myself pray- 
ing ! Is n’t it queer how we poor sinners take the liberty 
of planning for God, and laying out work for him, just 
as if he did n’t know what way was best to do it ! Want 
to run the whole universe, poor weak creatures that we 
are !” 

“This room looks as if you did not take much idle 
time, Mrs. Bowles,” said Persis, glancing about. 


70 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


‘^That’s so/' said Serena; “I have to stir; some 
one has to, and seems like it has always been me. Now 
I am glad to hear the Lord has put it into your heart to 
come and live right here among us, and bring a little 
something bright and strong and cheery to us. It will 
be so comfortable to see one place where all is not grind, 
and hurry, and pinch ! Why, it will be just like a Park, 
a breathing-place put down here among us. We'll get 
new thoughts, something fresh to dwell on. That helps 
amazing. Why, if you ’ll believe it, a sprig of clover, 
or a faded bunch of apple blossoms that Jim Bowles has 
picked up among the market wagons — for Jim is very 
thoughtful that way, and kind-hearted — why, such a 
sprig has carried me clean away out of myself to the 
country, and the old times when I was a girl. I could 
see me laying clothes to bleach on the grass, and picking 
shell beans or peas along the rows in the garden ; and 
I 'd seem to be walking in my best frock under that row 
of popple trees on the way to church, the shadows of 
them white popple leaves shivering on the path, and but- 
terflies, like flowers blown off their stems, drifting along 
over the pastures, and the long bench under the bomber- 
gilear trees, where I and Jim Bowles used to sit even- 
ings after the milking was done, and all the air was full 
of laylock smell and the chirping and chirring of so many 
live things ! Well, if you '11 believe me, by the time I 
was done thinking I would find half an ironing finished, 
and the time gone by so easy I did n't know where it had 
gone to. " 

“And you were from the country, Mrs. Bowles.!*" 


t 


SERENA BOWLES’ EXPERIENCES. 71 

“Yes, and I often feel sorry we left it ; it seems just 
like heaven to think of. And Jim 's sorry too, now ; but 
leave he would, thinking country work too hard ; but 
I 've found it harder here. However, the Lord has never 
seemed inclined to let us go back, and I try not to fret, 
but to feel, real deep down, what's his will is my will.” 

“Dr. Bond says you manage, with all your hard work, 
to help your neighbors wonderfully.” 

“Oh, no, indeed, only just the least bit in the world : 
a wash for some sick person, or to sit part of a night, or 
cook some one’s meals along with mine ; or tidy up a 
room, or wash a baby. You see, I'm poor, and I can't 
do much, for all my will 's good enough. And is n't it 
a comfort that the Lord is so favorable that he takes us 
for what we 're willing to do, even if we do n’t reach out 
to accomplish it all ? It 's willing, not fulfilling, if so be 
we can’t fulfil. ” 

‘ ‘ I believe, looking straight into your eyes, that you 
are really cheerful and contented, satisfied. Tell me how 
you do it. Were you * made that way, ' as you say ?” 

‘ ‘ Well, no, miss, I was not. I 've fretted my share, 
but I knew fretting was sinful and hurtful and hindered 
me terrible, and I kept praying the Lord would show me 
how to be easy in my mind ; and one day I seemed to 
get a revelation. The Lord showed me what he had 
showed plenty of other people, only I M been too dull to 
see it till he took a little pains with me. I was singing 
‘ A charge to keep I have ' in church ; and it came upon 
me that my trouble was I was always craving to be hap- 
py, and supposing I was put here to be happy, while 


72 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


really I was put here to keep a charge : to glorify God 
and train up my soul for heaven. Time enough to be 
happy over yonder. I says, ‘ Serena Bowles, henceforth 
you attend to that charge, and it do n’t make a mite of 
difference if you never walk under a popple tree nor 
see a bombergilear again. ’ ” 

It was Persis’ habit when she had received something 
valuable in conversation to go away and think about it. 
Thus now she carried off for meditation Serena Bowles’ 
philosophy. As our minds are given to harping on little 
oddities, she dwelt also on the ‘ ‘ popple trees ” and the 
“bombergilear.” What did they represent? Finally 
she successfully made poplar out of “popple,” but the 
bombergilear resisted the best efforts of herself and Har- 
riet. Then one night, lying awake, she received an 
illumination. She was so delighted that she sprang out 
of bed, ran across the hall, and knocking, called, “Har- 
riet ! Harriet ! I ’ve got it ! Bombergilear is Balm of 
Gilead !” Then the two girls laughed so hilariously that 
Mrs. Sayce was constrained to call through her open ven- 
tilator to know what was so exceedingly funny at that 
time of night — so late that tired Serena Bowles was 
walking in dreams under popple and bombergilear trees. 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 


73 


CHAPTER VI. 

TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 

“ I have but thee, O Father ! Let thy Spirit 
Be with me still, to comfort and uphold: 

No branch of palm, no shining crown I merit, 

Nor street of shining gold.” 

By the twenty-fifth of December the “house on 
Gardner Street ’’ was finished, shining with new ceilings, 
new paper, and heavy coats of paint. “ Jim Bowles,"' as 
Serena called her husband, had been busy for ten days, 
in his plodding, accurate but lazy fashion, clearing up 
rubbish, cutting kindling, storing coal, cleaning the 
sidewalk; which last operation greatly edified Gardner 
Street, and no sooner was it accomplished than a score 
of children settled down on steps and curb-stones like 
a flight of sparrows. 

“It's all swept and clean like it was a parlor," said 
one midget to another. ‘ ‘ Let "s play it is a parlor. " 

So there they remained daily, as long as light lasted, 
scrutinizing and fingering every thing that was carried in, 
and greatly riling the temper of the draymen, who de- 
clared that they “couldn't get into the house for chil- 
dren under feet. " 

Persis made sallies among them, once with a big 
basket of apples and again with a box of doughnuts, 
which proceedings in no wise lessened her crowd. 

Persis had visited her new friend Serena several times, 


74 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and it was through her that she secured a woman for the 
service of her private family of four ; an English woman 
lately widowed, who in great poverty had nursed her 
husband through a long, terrible illness. 

“She needs a harbor,” said Serena; “a quiet place 
where she'll hear kind words and feel she has friends. 
She 's had an awful time, has Mrs. Massey ; when I con- 
sider her I say to myself, ‘ Serena Bowles, you 've no ca44 
to complain ; the Lord has seen fit to shower you with 
benedictions.' ” 

And Serena felt as if she had a new benediction, too 
large for words to express, when Persis offered “Jim 
Bowles” steady work as elevator-tender and general util- 
ity man at three dollars a week and his board. 

‘ ‘ I hardly dared offer a man that, ” said Persis to Dr. 
Bond ; “but someway it seemed exactly what Serena was 
wishing for, and I concluded she knew Jim, and how to 
manage him, better than anybody else. ” 

“You may be sure she does,” said Dr. Bond, with 
a twinkle in his eyes. “To be free of Jim's complain- 
ing about his meals, and given the room he occupies 
hour after hour by the stove, in the way of her tubs and 
irons, will be a great help to Serena. If you gave Jim 
six, seven or ten dollars a week he 'd strike for higher 
wages, and find the work too hard in a month. He '11 
take himself at your valuation, and conclude nobody 
else would want him. Jim is one of those who can’t 
endure prosperity. Besides, he is childish enough to 
enjoy riding in the elevator !” 

The Clarke sisters were the first to move into the 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 


75 


renovated house : they found their sunny room in the 
top story supplied with curtains, a couple of strips of 
bright rag-carpet, a geranium in bloom, and a wash-stand 
with its furniture ; Persis knew just how far she could 
go in giving without hurting their feelings. The room 
had a fire-place, two closets and a long low mantle- 
piece. 

'' “No more stove heat for you, Annie,” said Persis. 
“Sunshine, and the ventilation of an open fire, and in 
a month’s time you will be learning flower work of 
Cousin Susan.” 

Trinka was also to learn the flower work, and Mrs. 
Gayley had made bold to ask for work more to her 
mind than sewing. “Let me have the cleaning of all 
the halls and of your six rooms. Miss Thrale, for my 
board and Trinka’s and the small room next to the 
Clarkes. I can make that look real neat with my own 
things, and being a brisk cleaner I can get done for 
you by dinner time, and earn enough afternoons for our 
clothes by sewipg for the women in the neighborhood. 

I won’t neglect your work. ” 

Again Persis hesitated whether this would be fair ; 
ought she not to pay more to Mrs. Gayley ? 

“If she’s set her price, and made her plan, let her 
have it,” advised Katherine Clarke. “She is more like- 
ly to feel satisfied and independent. A little liberty of 
choice is dearer to most of us than money. ” 

Harriet Hughes had been to all the houses in the 
neighborhood explaining the kindergarten, which was to 
open the day after New-Year’s. The mothers were in- 


76 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


vited to come and see it for themselves, and children 
from three to six years old were to be admitted. 

“Oh isn’t this heavenly !” sighed Mrs. Massey, when 
she had hung the last rolling-pin and sauce-pan to her 
mind, looked into the beautiful depths of the new 
stationary tubs, opened and shut the drawer of the 
kitchen table, admired the box of kitchen towels and 
the handsome range. “Isn’t this just enough to make 
the widow’s heart sing for joy ! Sure enough, the 
lines are fallen to me in pleasant places, I have a goodly 
heritage ! Many’s the time in my troubles I felt as if I 
must lie down and die, but I did n’t find the Lord had 
called me to die, but to do : and here he has saved me 
alive for this and she stood in the doorway between 
the dining-room and kitchen and surveyed the pretty 
dining-room with its stand of plants in one window — 
a room plain, orderly, attractive, with a few pictures on 
the walls, the table with a center - piece of a pot of 
ferns. “ Oh, ain’t it heavenly !” 

Persis had made the rounds of the neighborhood and 
invited the girls and women to come and spend the 
evening of New Year’s. “ Just to have a pleasant time,” 
she told them, “and learn to be sociable together: she 
wanted to be friends with her neighbors. They would 
have some music and singing, a recitation or two from 
Miss Hughes, and a magic lantern. She felt sure they 
would enjoy it.” 

Having invited them thus genially, and her home 
being swept and garnished and all complete, Persis stood 
in the door of her sitting-room, about four o’clock on 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 


77 


New Year’s day, and admired it to her heart’s content. 
The well-painted floor shone like glass, and four or five 
rugs lay like islands on that shining sea ; there were 
pictures on the walls, a stand of flowers in gay bloom, 
a cabinet of curiosities — idols from heathen lands, jugs, 
money, utensils, ornaments from India, China, Alaska, 
and the Pacific Isles. In one corner stood a piano, and 
on it lay her violin ; there was a case of books, and on a 
big table lay illustrated books and portfolios of pictures 
not too good to handle freely. Then there was another 
table with patterns and pattern books, and bits of vari- 
ous kinds of work, that might awaken interest or give 
an example. Persis felt that surely she would see that 
room full that evening, perhaps even be obliged to open 
the sliding-doors and use the flower-work room, with its 
long table and its shelves of boxes of material. 

“ How well we have got on,” she said to Katherine 
Clarke, who passed her coming in from an errand. 

“That is because every one had her own work and 
did it. Miss Hughes had the kindergarten, and only 
that ; Miss North had her dressmaking room, and no 
more ; Miss Susan had her flower-work class to put all 
her time on : and as no one was over-burdened, and 
each did what she knew how to do, all is done easily 
and well.” 

“I’m sure we’ll have all the neighbors to-night,” 
said Persis. Katherine did not venture an opinion. 
Perhaps she knew the neighbors better than Persis did. 
Perhaps if Persis had heard some of the neighborhood’s 
remarks she would not have been so sure of a full room. 


78 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Going?” said Mrs. Mulhony. “No, I ain’t going. 
I do n’t want to be sung to and read to. I ’ll bet you 
couldn’t smoke a pipe ’mong them fine ladies. Me and 
Mis’ Kelly will have our Welsh rabbit, and our pitcher 
of beer, and our pipes after, up in my room, and like 
it ten times better than their ‘ Social ’ — bad luck to ’em !” 

“I know I ain’t a-going neither,*’ said Mrs. Trawles ; 
“the likes of her coming in in a fur cape and a hat 
with a feather, flaunting her good clothes, to invite me ! 
One of her gowns would buy us all out. I don’t 
want anything to do with high -flyers. If she wants 
our company why don’t she dress like us ?” 

“That wouldn’t suit you either, Mis’ Trawles,” said 
her next neighbor. “So be she had come in with shoes 
trod under at the heels, and a calico with a slit pinned 
up, and a shawl pinned over her head, then you ’d have 
faulted her for that — on account of her saving good 
clothes for big-bugs and not thinking us worth wear- 
ing them for. As for her clothes, Mis’ Trawles, she 
wears them as natural and don’t think more about 
them than my canary of his feathers. Now, I ’m going. 
For if there is anything a bit nice and cheery lying in my 
way I mean to enjoy it. We needn’t go again if we 
do n’t like it, or we can leave soon as we are tired of it, 
I reckon. I ’m going to see what it is. ” 

“Well, Maria Jane and I can’t go,” said Mrs. Moss ; 
“we are so dead tired, doing heavy work eleven hours 
a day, we just merely drop over, come night, ’most too 
far gone to take our clothes off. There ’s no fun in 
lives as hard as ours. ” 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 79 

^‘I’d go, though,” said Maria Jane, “if I had a 
thing to wear. Seems like a little something pleasant 
might rest me all the same as sleep ; but my gown skirt 
front is all spoiled and my shoe is burst out at the side, 
and I can’t go.” 

“Far as that goes, Maria Jane, Fll loan you my 
shoes and my long white apron, if so ye hanker to go. 
I do n’t forget how ye sat up with little Kate when she 
was sick, and you’re always ready to do good turns, 
Maria Jane. I can’t go myself, for Peter has asked 
three of his shopmates to a supper out of some rabbits 
they shot, and I have to cook it and serve it. ” 

“Nor I can’t go,” said another woman, “along of 
the children. If I put them to sleep and left them 
the baby ’d be sure to wake up and scream till all the 
others were awake and crying. ’T is n’t much pleasure 
the likes of us get, d’ ye hear me !” 

“Why can’t your husband see to the children, and 
let you have an evening’s pleasure demanded a young 
woman. 

“The idea of his seeing after the children! Why, 
the men think the children are none of their business.” 
Thus the chorus of the women. 

“I do n’t see why they are not as much their father’s 
business as yours. They belong to him as much as 
to you, both by law and gospel. Fathers ought to 
be glad to give a little care to their children and rest 
their mothers a bit. It is sure all the family would 
be the better for it. No doubt you have begun by 
taking it for granted that men can’t and won’t help 


8o 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


in tending the little ones. I shall not do that way. If 
God sends us children Jonathan and I will both see 
to caring for them.” 

"‘Oh, you’ll see he won’t! The men no more 
think it is their part to see to their children than it is 
to wash or sew.” 

‘ ‘ That begins with the notion that the men have all 
they can do to work and provide a living, and are doing 
it ; but the fact is, not two men in this ward provide a 
good living for their families, and all the wives are add- 
ing to the sewing, washing, cooking and the care of 
the children, more or less work for earning wages to 
help matters out. And I say that any maa who idles 
round the street corners, or sits smoking and beer- 
drinking in saloons, and leaves his wife unhelped in all 
her work, is a mean, lazy man I” 

Loud laughter from the women. “Oh they call 
all that talking politics, and bettering their wages ! ’ 

“ And how much better off are their families for it ? 
For my part, I ’m going this evening ; for if there is 
anything coming here to make us happier or better or 
more sensible I want my share of it,” said Mrs. Tull, 
the advocate of equal rights and privileges. 

“Now I know all the ins and outs of this invite,” 
said a rough-looking dame. “This singing and reading 
she tells of will turn out to be all hymns and Bible, 
and the whole thing is gotten up to chouse us all into 
her church, whichever it is. Folks do n’t do things for 
nothing. ” 

“ She won’t get me; I haven’t time for any religion.” 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 8 1 

“ More like she just wants us to come and see how 
fine she’s fixed up, and after that she wont know us on 
the street. ” 

‘‘There’s plenty of quality want to come meddling 
in our affairs ; but if we just stand up for ourselves and 
give them plenty of bluff they’ll get tired and drop 
it.” 

Thus on and on, the majority of opinion being 
against Persis, her work and her invitation. 

When evening came, instead of a crowd came only 
Mrs. Bowles and her friend and neighbor Mrs. Mumsey, 
Mrs. Tull, Maria Jane, in borrowed clothing, Mrs. 
Cobb, one or two others (who refused to lay off their 
hoods and sat near the door, ready to escape if affairs 
looked dangerous) and the lodgers in the house. The 
rooms were not full by any means. A Mrs. Picot, a 
Canadian - French woman, with three daughters, toy- 
makers, had taken two rooms on the third floor, and 
four or five other rooms were occupied. Persis had not 
found the rush for reasonable and healthful rooms which 
she had expected. Many preferred the dear possibility 
of being untidy, and nearly all were suspicious. 

“You’ll get the rooms full, and with the right sort, 
in course of time,” said Katherine Clarke ; “there will 
be more want to come than you can accommodate. It 
will be so too with the Socials ; they will be crowded 
when they hear that people come and get away safely !” 

Persis glanced about at the nearly empty room — the 
half - dozen outsiders looking nervous and regretful. 
Miss Rebecca grimly non-committal. Miss Susan truly 

New Samaritan. 6 


82 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


sympathetic with the disappointment of Persis. Then 
Persis began to pull herself together. She realized that 
if her “social evenings” were to grow in popularity and 
usefulness they must be made pleasant from the start. 
The few present that first evening would be closely 
questioned by those who refused their invitations. A 
good report must surely be carried ; her blood was up 
to show cousin Rebecca that her plans were good and 
feasible. She thought of her school-days motto, Nulla 
vestigia retrorsum, and of that nobler translation of the 
same, “No man putting his hand to the plow and look- 
ing back is fit for the kingdom of God. ” 

She threw herself into the entertaining ; all the family 
were present, Mrs. Gayley and Trinka and Mrs. Massey. 
Mrs. Massey, with a book of pictures and a little basket 
of worsted work, knitting, and patch-work, was planted 
by the hooded women, who uneasily regarded the door 
and possibilities of flight. Serena was called to the 
stand of flowers, almost as fine a sight as a row of pop- 
ple or bombergilear trees. Mrs. Gayley and Trinka 
and Maria Jane were led to the open cabinet of curiosities. 
“See, this little doll is dressed exactly like a Japanese 
lady, and here is her bed — a mat, and a little wooden 
block for a pillow ; and here is a little two-wheeled 
carriage drawn by a man, in which carriage the lady 
goes to her temple to pray to this idol. Idol worship is 
likely soon to be done away in Japan. Where is it, did 
you ask, Trinka .? Here is a globe : I can show you the 
exact place. Here we are, and we start in the cars 
and go here, and here, and here, to San Francisco, and 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 83 

then we take a steamer ” — and so on ; great interest was 
shown in the globe and the curiosities. 

Katherine Clarke had drawn Mrs. Tull to look at 
the books of patterns and some of the easily-made trim- 
mings on the table. Her “sister Annie would be so 
glad to show her how to make these trimmings. ” “You 
could learn in an hour ; and you see the material is 
cheap — just thread and a little braid.” 

Then Persis left the cabinet with Annie Clarke and 
herself drifted to Mrs. Massey’s help and brought the 
conversation to cooking — soups, stews and cheap dishes ; 
and then produced Miss Corson’s book of cheap cooking, 
and let in a little light on good meals for little money. 

“ I ’ve been to Cooking-school,” said Persis, “and to 
Emergency lectures, and to a Nursing-school ; but I ex- 
pect to learn many things about plain cooking from 
Mrs. Massey. This room is quite warm, wont i'you let 
Mrs. Massey take your hoods and shawls? There, 
you will be more comfortable ! Will you look at my 
flowers ? I like to raise slips to give away ; I hope to 
find neighbors here who will want all the slips I can pot 
for them. Oh, you are looking at what Trinka has in 
her hand? A pair of shoes, or sandals rather, from 
India. Bring them here, Trinka ! Mrs. Bowles, I want 
you and Mrs. Mumsey to look at that square red book 
on the table. It is Dor6’s Bible Illustrations ; you will 
like it. ” 

So between them all in a little while everyone was at 
ease and interested, freely looking at the pictures, flow- 
ers and curiosities. Then three here and four there 


84 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


were persuaded to play simple games — “The Mansion 
of Happiness,” or “A Trip Around the World.” They 
were as pleased as children, twirling the little tops, and 
as Miss Susan, Annie and Katherine helped play there 
was no trouble about the reading that was needed. 
Cousin Rebecca thawed, explained to some of the wo- 
men her dressmaking scheme, and took two of them up 
to see the work-room. Then Miss Susan turned up the 
light in the next room and told about free lessons in 
flower work, and how Trinka, Annie, Marie Picot and 
two others would take their first lesson next day. 

Then Harriet Hughes played and sang, and Persis 
played on her violin — common old tunes, “Swanee 
River,” “Pop Goes the Weasel, ’ “Blue Bonnets Over 
the Border,” “Annie Laurie.” Then Harriet played a 
popular melody that all the street boys were whistling 
and all the hand-organs were grinding out, and the 
guests, taking courage, joined in singing, and then sang 
two or three other tunes. Mrs. Massey walked up and 
down the hall, rubbed her eyes, and pronounced it all 
‘ ‘ heavenly. ” 

Then Harriet recited “Roger and I,” and “The 
Swan Song of Parson Avery,” after which refreshments 
were served unconventionally — pop-corn being brought 
about, well-salted and buttered, in a great wooden chop- 
ing-bowl, and apples came, red and shining, in a new 
splint basket; then Mrs. Gayley handed around ginger- 
cookies of Mrs. Massey’s make piled on a japanned 
tray, Trinka gave every one a Japanese paper napkin, 
and finally every one had a cup of tea. Great joy and 


TOMMY TIBBETS AND OTHERS. 85 

volubility came with the refreshments, and with a little 
urging everyone helped herself two or three times. 

When ten o’clock struck Mrs. Tull remarked that 
they ‘ ‘ must be going. ” 

“Wait for one last sing,” said Persis ; and she and 
Harriet with the piano struck up “God be with you till 
we meet again.” When it was ended Persis added, “I 
am very glad you all came and I wish the others had 
come too. Tell them so. I mean to have these Socials 
every Thursday evening, from seven to ten, and all the 
women in the neighborhood are invited and will be wel- 
come. I shall have something to entertain you always, 
though maybe we shall not always have as much to eat; 
this being New Year’s was a special occasion. Come 
again and bring your friends. Good night. ” 

“Ain’t it been heavenly !” sighed Mrs. Massey, gath- 
ering up cups and trays. 

“A real success, I call it,” said Katherine Clarke. 

Next morning at nine Persis peeped into the kinder- 
garten to see if Harriet was making a success also. The 
room was pretty full. 

“They are all here, and Tommy Tibbets,” said Har- 
riet laughing. Tommy Tibbets was a fat, untidy baby 
but little over two. 

“Mistook it for a Day Nursery,” laughed Persis. 


86 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER VII. 

MISS Rebecca’s prospers. 

“ How all mere fiction crumbles at her feet ! 

Here is woe’s self and not the mask of woe. 

A legend’s shadow shall not move you so.” 

Who and what was Tommy Tibbets .? “I have not 
met anyone named Tibbets in this neighborhood,” said 
Harriet; “he is quite too young even for the kinder- 
garten, but I do not wish to arouse enmity by sending 
him away.” 

Meantime Tommy, indifferent to discussions con- 
cerning himself, sat on the floor and ate an apple. 

“Who brought Tommy Tibbets.?” This question 
Persis propounded several times without receiving any 
answer, until Mary Hook lifted her little round head 
from the paper on which she was making marks and 
volunteered the information, 

“Tommy Tibbets, he corned with me !” 

“Who sent him ?” 

“ My mammy.” 

“What for?” 

‘ ‘ Said if you was taking care of babies you might as 
well take care of Tommy; he didn’t have nobody else 
at all to do it.” 

“ Is he your little brother ?” 

Shrieks of laughter came from all the children who 


MISS REBECCA'S PROSPERS. 87 

heard the interrogation. It was so exceedingly funny to 
think of “brother Tommy Tibbets.'' 

“Where is his mamma.?” 

“In a hole in the ground,” said the literal Hook 
infant. 

‘ ‘ Where does he live ?” 

‘ ‘ 'Long with us ; but when my dad gets home from 
sea mammy knows he'll send Tommy Tibbets flying; 
he ain t so soft-hearted as mammy, to do for strangers. ” 

“And how long has Tommy's mamma been dead ?” 

“Oh, ever 'n' ever so long !” 

“Before Tommy could walk?” 

“Oh, no; he could run out doors and play in the 
gutter. ” 

Persis concluded that Tommy's mother had been dead 
since summer, six months perhaps. At first the reported 
remarks about “might as well take care of Tommy Tib- 
bets,” and how “ daddy would send him a-flying,” seemed 
to Persis very brutal. Then common sense rose up and 
directed her attention to the goodness of the poor to the 
poor. Here was this sailor's wife, with a flock of chil- 
dren of her own, and little to keep them on, taking 
Tommy in with the rest; giving him the same rough care 
and careless kindness that her own brood received. 

“What did ever I do that was as truly liberal as 
that?” Persis asked herself, and conscience frankly re- 
plied, “Nothing.” 

The thought of the plump, friendless, dirty baby 
haunted her ; she went out and purchased shoes, stock- 
ings, a suit of under flannel, a woolen dress, and a pair 


88 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


of check aprons. Then she came back, captured Tom- 
my, and repaired to the bath-room. Persis had never 
before washed a young child ; Tommy had never before 
been thoroughly well washed. Persis by nature obeyed 
the precept, “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it 
with thy might.’’ Howls, wails, roars, ear-piercing 
shrieks, came from that bath-room for over half an hour. 
Then Persis emerged, red-faced, her sleeves rolled up, her 
apron well wet, but leading triumphantly a radiantly 
clean Tommy, newly dressed, and joyfully expectant of 
‘ ‘ ever so much to eat. ” 

Afterwards Tommy regularly went home at night, but 
baths, garments, and meals were nevertheless frequently 
and promiscuously bestowed upon him by Persis, Cousin 
Susan, Mrs. Massey, or Mrs. Gayley. Persis in the 
course of her visitations found Mrs. Hook and inquired 
into the status of Tommy. 

“Poor kid, he don’t belong anywhere,” said Mrs. 
Hook. “His mother boarded with me, and we both 
worked on horse clothing for the factory ; and it is hard 
work and poor pay. Mis’ Tibbets died sudden, and 
Tommy just stayed on cause I couldn’t turn the poor 
mite out. She died in June. Tommy was two last Sep- 
tember. His father, did you say ? I do n’t know about 
him; some things made me think he was dead, and some 
things made me think he ’d got himself into jail. When 
my man comes home from sea he ’ll send Tommy off, 
feeling as his own is enough, and we so crowded we can’t 
turn round.” 

“I will have to provide for Tommy, then,” said Per- 


MISS REBECCA’S PROSPERS. 89 

sis to Miss Susan; “how I shall manage it I don’t 
know. ” 

“You cannot guess what hundreds of times I have 
wished I could adopt a child,” said Miss Susan ; “I love 
children so, and it seems when I am real old I shall be 
so lonely. But Rebecca does not like children, so of 
course I can't do it.” 

“ I '11 ask Serena Bowles to keep the case in mind, ” 
said Persis ; “Serena always sees a way out.” 

“Wouldn't I love to take him,” said Serena; “I 
would not mind a little harder work if it was for a child. 
I have always wanted a child so. But, la ! Jim Bowles 
would scold if I had a child 'round. I can't even keep a 
dog or a cat, Jim is so jealous-minded. He is made that 
way. ^Serena,' he'd say, ‘you care more for that dog 
than you do for me. You talk more to him and do 
more for him. ' So there it was ; I had to give up cats 
and dogs for Jim's peace of mind. Men are made so 
queer, miss.” 

Persis herself did not think of adopting Tommy, or 
any other child. It had not occurred to her as a per- 
sonal duty. She fed and clothed Tommy to relieve poor 
Mrs. Hook of a burden, and he spent most of his time 
at the kindergarten or playing on the corner of Gardner 
Street. Persis had not yet taken up any especial line of 
work ; her vacant rooms slowly filled, and week after 
week more women came to the Thursday Socials. They 
were attracted by the magic lantern, tableaux, bright 
little talks on sewing, cooking, nursing, from Persis, or 
Harriet, or their friend Mrs. Sayce ; and, what the women 


90 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


liked most of all, descriptions of travels in foreign lands, 
especially if the descriptions were accompanied by curi- 
osities or pictures. 

After the New Year s reception Persis had made her 
rounds again to invite her neighbor women to a Sunday 
afternoon Bible reading. “We will have plenty of sing- 
ing,” she said, “and my friend, Mrs. Sayce, will begin 
regular Bible readings on the life and words of Jesus. I 
hope you will come. I am sure you will enjoy it. ” 

“I’m sure we wont, and we are not coming,” said a 
big virago. “I told ’em next thing you d be meddling 
with religion ; but it wont work ; we sha n't have any 
Bible readings round here. ” 

“And how can I be hindered having readings in my 
own house?” asked Persis calmly. “The readings will 
be a fixed fact, whether any of you will come or not. 
You remember we are a large family there by ourselves, ‘ 
and Mrs. Sayce will have a large class from the house- 
people if no one else comes. As long as I live here on 
Gardner Street I shall have a Bible reading every Sunday 
afternoon, no matter who comes or who opposes. I 
hope to make these readings very pleasant and very help- 
ful, and I hope before long all my neighbors will be com- 
ing regularly and looking forward to them as the pleas- 
antest things in the week. Come regularly, come occa- 
sionally, drop in for part of the hour, just as you choose ; 
only come and see what it is before you condemn it. ” 

“She gave old Suke as good as she got,” said Mrs. 
Moss to Mrs. Tull, “and I was glad of it. Suke is 
always at somebody with her loud tongue, and I was 


MISS REBECCA'S PROSPERS. 9 1 

right pleased to see our young lady standing up with her 
head thrown back, looking Suke right level in the eyes, 
and laying down the law to her. My Maria Jane says 
she would n’t be hired to stay home from Bible reading, 
or Social either ; they just put new life in her. ’Pears 
like she can’t talk enough about what she heard and 
saw and ate. I lay out to go myself next time.” 

“When my Bible readings and my Socials are fairly 
started, ” said Persis, ‘ ‘ I mean to choose some regular 
daily work for myself, as the rest of you have. I think it 
will be nursing. I take naturally to that, and I do n’t 
know what is more needed around here than a Bible 
nurse. I can know the people better, help them more, 
educate them more, as a Bible nurse than in any other 
line of work, I think. I must get acquainted, and see 
what is needed, and how much and what kind of nursing 
I should be likely to have; ” 

“Will you have a uniform ?” asked Harriet Hughes. 

“ Yes : the gray dress, white sleeves, cap and apron, 
big cloak, and big bag — bag full of possibilities as the 
mother’s bag in the ‘Swiss Family Robinson!’ The 
nurse’s uniform is a protection ; it is recognized, and 
gives one a respectability and standing, even in the rough- 
est slums. The good done by the nurses secures a mea- 
sure of gratitude and decent treatment. Another good 
thing about the uniform is that the wearer is recognized 
and called in to cases of which she has not known, or in 
sudden emergencies and accidents. The uniform is a 
clean and convenient garb too, and is soon associated 
with friendship and succor in people’s minds. When 


92 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


folks are sick, and you are in their homes as nurse, you 
can set them an example of cleanliness, neat cooking, 
pleasant ways ; and while their hearts are softened by 
trouble and by gratitude you can give them bits of gos- 
pel and good advice without being supposed to preach/’ 

“I see clearly that you will be a Bible nurse,” said 
Harriet. 

“So do I,” said Persis ; “but first I want to know 
my field better, and I want to understand some things of 
which I have heard. I want, for instance, to know more 
of the sweating system. ” 

“You cannot go about much among the working 
women,” said Katherine Clarke, “without coming upon 
that system. There is a sweat-shop round the corner, 
kept by a Jew named Bohm, and the work is ‘men’s 
ready made. ’ ” 

“What is the ‘ reason-of-being ’ of the system ?” asked 
Persis. 

‘ ‘ The sweater is a middle-man who contracts for the 
work from the wholesale dealer, getting a price more or 
less large than he pays to his work people ; and that 
margin which he ‘ sweats ’ out of them is his living. The 
reason for his existence is, that many of the work people 
are not able to pay the guarantee for the safety of the 
goods taken away from the wholesale dealer’s premises ; 
others have lost their machines, or never had any. The 
sweater gets a cheaper room, near his work people, and 
so they are saved the time, fatigue and expense of the 
longer daily trip to work. Knowing his people, he 
allows the work to be carried home for finishing, and at 


MISS REBECCA’S PROSPERS. 


93 


that all the family can help : children from three and 
four years of age can pull out bastings ; those a little 
older put on buttons ; the women fell down the hems 
or belt linings. I have seen poor creatures, sick, sit- 
ting up in bed doing this finishing, almost dying at 
the work sometimes. 

‘ ‘ And what wages does the sweater pay 

‘ ‘ The least he can, naturally. So little that women 
‘ finishing ’ at home can by steady work make no more 
than thirty or forty cents a day. When girls first go to the 
sweater’s shop as hand-workers he makes them work for 
nothing for a month, ‘ to learn ’ ; but all the time he sees 
to it that the work is good enough for him to be paid for. 
Then he gives a dollar or a dollar and a half a week, 
and so on up to three dollars. About twenty per cent, 
of all the workers for sweaters, the few representing really 
skilled labor, get five or six dollars a week ; and that is 
offset by slack times, when the market is glutted and 
they get nothing, or are on half or one-third wages. 
Some of these women getting six dollars do button-hol- 
ing and pressing, but the men do most of that and are 
paid higher. Some women, beginning work, are too 
poor to buy needles, thread or wax, but when they go to 
a sweater’s shop all those things are provided. Oh, those 
ready-made suits could tell rare pitiful tales if they could 
speak !” 

“You are quite right,” said Miss Rebecca, “to 
study the situation carefully before you make a decision, 
Persis. Nothing is really more difficult than to do phil- 
anthropic work well. The beginner is likely to give, 


94 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


give, give, without consideration, and so make paupers ; 
other people, in their zeal to right wrongs, simply increase 
wrongs. I have known well-meaning people who, find- 
ing women at over-hard work at which they could make 
but a scant living, urged them into some other labor for 
which they were so little fitted that they could not make 
any living at all. Now there are Maria Jane Moss and 
her mother working themselves nearly to death on police- 
men’s heavy overcoats, and yet, *hard as the work is, 
scarcely earning enough to keep body and soul together. 
We all want to see them helped ; I am inclined to think 
that Maria Jane would do well at dressmaking, but be- 
fore she can leave the coats to learn dressmaking Mrs. 
Moss must be put in the way of easier and better paid 
work that she can do.” 

Miss Rebecca secretly felt that her work in Gardner 
Street was the best that was being done. She was a very 
sensible, systematic woman, and had studied her plans 
out carefully months, even years, before she had any 
idea that she should ever be able to carry them out. 
Persis provided the large room, fuel, chairs, large and 
small table, and oil-stove for heating pressing-irons. 
Having found herself on the eve of accomplishing her 
plans Miss Rebecca engaged a forewoman at eight dol- 
lars a week and dinners with the family ; then she chose 
five girls for apprentices, intending to increase the num- 
ber to eight, and these girls she designed to teach thor- 
oughly until they were able to set up in the dressmak- 
ing business themselves or she could place them in estab- 
lishments where the weekly wages were higher. All of 


MISS REBECCA’S PROSPERS. 


95 


Miss Rebecca’s girls were dependent on themselves for 
entire support, and so even at the beginning they must 
be paid. Miss Rebecca had no scale of wages, but one 
fixed price for all as long as they remained with her — and 
that was but three dollars a week and dinners. The 
work on which these new hands could be employed was 
of the plainest and simplest ; fashionable customers will- 
ing to pay well would be little likely to find their way to 
Gardner Street. Neat work and perfect fitting Miss Re- 
becca meant to teach, and she had also the prospect of 
supplying a few handsome garments for the last work of 
her apprentices, as they completed their course of in- 
struction and went out, leaving their places to others. 

‘^Good instruction, good influences, a healthful, 
pleasant work-room, interest in their health, manners, 
and morals, help in finding for them good positions when 
they are well taught — that is what I propose for my 
girls,” said Miss Rebecca. “My five thousand dollars 
brings me three hundred a year, and half of that I keep 
for myself, and half I shall use on my girls. The din- 
ners for the girls will cost me twenty-five cents a day, 
and that will be seventy-eight dollars a year. Then I 
shall have seventy-two dollars left for thread, needles, 
pins, scissors, and making up any wages where we come 
short. A scant pattern, Persis, but I shall make it do. 
I always was good at cutting my coat to suit my cloth.” 

“ How you are to give eight girls a dinner for twen- 
ty-five cents passes my guessing, ” said Persis, ‘ ‘ and 1 
hope you will let me take a lesson in economy from you, 
Cousin Rebecca.” 


96 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


‘ ‘ I shall have a loaf of bread and plenty of good soup. 
The soup shall be different every day in the week, hot, 
rich, and a big bowl of it for each. The bread will cost 
five cents ; I shall get a loaf a day old, a long loaf, and 
cut it into eight equal pieces. The soup will cost twenty 
cents. Bean soup one day, pea soup another, soup of 
mutton bones with rice and maccaroni another, tomato 
soup with beef bones ; shin of beef soup with plenty of 
vegetables for two successive days, so that I can lay out 
forty cents at once ; the pea and bean soups will cost less 
than twenty cents, the tomato soup a bit more, and so 
it will even up. Come out for an evening or two and see 
me buy.” 

Every evening the steadfast Miss Rebecca went for 
her bread and soup-stuff ; each morning before breakfast 
she was in the kitchen preparing her soup. When it was 
all ready Mrs. Massey was glad to see that it cooked 
steadily without burning. At noon one of the girls in 
turn laid a cloth on the small table, took eight bowls 
and spoons, a bread plate and a knife from the corner 
closet and laid them on the table ; then she went down 
on the elevator for the loaf and the covered soup boiler, 
and bringing them up cut the bread and filled the bowls. 
When the meal was over another girl put the bowls in 
the empty boiler, went down to the kitchen and washed 
them neatly, and so the meal was over. The improved 
flesh, strength, and complexion of the apprentices soon 
spoke clearly in behalf of the advantage of even one well- 
cooked nourishing meal in a day. Three of Miss Rebec- 
ca’s girls had a room in the house, and it did the heart 


MISS REBECCA'S PROSPERS. 


97 


of Persis good to see how these girls changed for the bet- 
ter ; their health improved, their manners softened, their 
language grew more refined, they looked cheerful and 
hopeful, and instead of lying in bed all Sunday morning, 
and taking a walk or visiting in the afternoon, they were 
off for church, attended the Bible reading and availed 
themselves of the library which Persis provided. This 
library was kept in the lower hall, and the only rule 
about it was that whoever took out a book must put in 
its place a slip of paper with her name and the date. 

Miss Rebecca s pride in her dressmaking establish- 
ment was pleasant to behold ; brusque, dictatorial as 
she was, her girls trusted her, obeyed her, and soon 
came to love her as their tireless, faithful friend. 

‘ One thing I can't and won’t do, " said Miss Rebec- 
ca, “is to teach girls how to sew. They must know 
how to make the stitches when they come to me. I 
can't do everything. I must draw a line somewhere, 
and I draw it there. If I spend time teaching girls to 
hem, run, fell, overcast, stitch, and so on, I cannot do 
justice to my customers, or to the girls who know how 
to sew and should learn dress and cloak making. I 
will not begin on girls who baste so that you can put 
two fingers between stitches, run a hem and call it hem- 
ming, and gather with long and short stitches promiscu- 
ously. " 

Persis soon found that there were plenty of girls, 
large and small, who could not sew, and who were dis- 
appointed at finding Miss Rebecca's workroom was not a 
sewing-school. Poor children ! Who would teach them ? 

7 


New Samaritan. 


98 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


‘ ‘ Loan me the kinder gartenroom from ten to four 
on Saturdays and Wednesdays and I will have a sewing- 
school,” said Mrs. Sayce, who was greatly interested 
in the Gardner Street venture. 

Persis was delighted with the sewing-school. But 
Persis was of the Jacob nature : while she looked well 
to the affairs of this life her chief hopes were set on the 
future, the land that lies very far off, and the heavenly 
birthright filled all her horizon with its surpassing excel- 
lence. ‘ ‘ What are you doing for their soul-life. Cousin 
Rebecca she asked. 

‘ ‘ I ask a blessing for them at their dinner regularly 
before I go down stairs,” said Miss North, “and we 
begin every day with a Bible verse, and a little prayer 
that the Lord will keep our thoughts and our tongues, 
and make us honest in work, not with eye-service as men 
pleasers, but with singleness of heart as unto God. ” 

“That is good,” said Persis ; “but if their thoughts 
and tongues are to be kept they should have something 
given them to talk of and think of. I should like to 
come up each morning and tell them a little story, a 
fact, if you think it would not disturb your work.” 

“I don’t know. If the story is not too long it might 
not ; but then they ’d forget it before you were down 
stairs. ” 

Persis laughed. “I think I am a more impres- 
sive story teller than that ! Besides, I shall illustrate 
my story by a water-color sketch, which I shall have 
hung up on the wall, or a chalk outline, or a colored 
crayon. ” 


MISS REBECCA’S PROSPERS. 


99 


^‘Well — try it,” said Miss North dubiously. “This 
one thing I do, ” was her business motto, and she greatly 
feared having attention distracted. 

Persis cheerfully accepted the reluctant permission, 
and next day she appeared with a sheet of grey board on 
which was broadly washed in a mediaeval figure. 

“I want to tell you a story,” she said, “of a man 
named Raimond Lully, who lived in the time of the 
Crusades. He was born about the middle of the thir- 
teenth century, was rich, educated, lived at court, and 
seemed until he was thirty years old to care only for 
pleasure. The Crusades, undertakeny to captures, the Hoi 
Sepulchre and other sacred places in Palestine from the 
Turks, did not move Raimond Lully, he cared nothing 
for them ; but one night, as he sat on his bedside com- 
posing a song, the thought of Christ, the crucified Sa- 
viour, was brought before him — Christ, dying for him, 
and worthy of all his love and all his service. As Paul 
and Cornelius saw the vision of the One altogether lovely, 
and arose and followed him, so Raimond Lully desired 
nothing but to follow in the steps of Christ, and convert 
the heathen world to the knowledge of Jesus. Louis, 
Tancred, Richard of the Lion Heart, Fredrick Barba- 
rossa, other kings, warriors, hermits, went sword in hand 
to the Crusades ; but for fifty years Raimond Lully went 
out alone, unhelped, to carry the gospel to the heathen 
world. He counted all toil, sorrow, pain, loss, as noth- 
ing, that he might win some souls to love his Lord. 
Wherever he went calling the heathen to the knowledge 
of God he also called the careless, idle so-named Chris- 


100 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


tians of the time to cease from serving self and serve 
the Saviour ; persecuted, imprisoned, shipwrecked, he 
counted all but gain if he might bring some to the 
knowledge of Christ. At last in Algiers, in a little 
town where he was preaching, he was stoned to death. 
He had fought a good fight, kept the faith, and received 
the crown of glory. ” 


A BIBLE NURSE. 


lOI 


CHAPTER VIII. 

A BIBLE NURSE. 

“ Suffice it if my good and ill unreckoned, 

And both forgiven by thy abounding grace, 

I find myself by hands familiar beckoned 
Unto my fitting place.” 

“Cousin Rebecca,” said Persis at dinner time, “did 
my little story distract the attention of your girls, and 
cause them to do poor work this morning 

“I don’t know that it did,” admitted Miss Rebecca 
reluctantly, for she mortally hated to yield a point. 

“It did them good,” spoke up the forewoman, who 
dined with the family. “They worked well, and they 
had more sensible, improving conversation than I ever 
heard from them before. They discussed whether such a 
sudden entire change as came upon Raimond Lully often 
occurred ; and whether it was likely to be permanent. 
They talked of the gay, luxurious life he left, and the 
hard, painful life that he assumed ; and then they made 
account of the more than five hundred years he had been 
in heaven, as set over against the fifty years of his labors, 
and added the thought that of the years of reward there 
would be no ending. One of them said that she should 
‘ hate to be as old and near death as Suke Ryan, and as 
wicked another said she ‘ would be willing any minute 
to take old Mrs. Mumsey's place, if she could have her 
assurance of eternal life. ’ ” 


102 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“And I told them/' interposed Miss Rebecca, “that 
choice was open to them, and it depended upon how 
they lived whether they reached age and the border-line 
of life like Mrs. Mumsey, or like Suke Ryan.” 

“Mrs. Mumsey, whoever she is, seems to have made 
a deep impression on them in favor of godliness,” said 
the forewoman. 

“Mrs. Mumsey is a saint,” said Miss Susan. 

“She is one of God's hidden ones,” said Harriet. 

‘ ‘ She has been life-long in the school of affliction, 
and it has worked out for her the peaceable fruits of 
righteousness,” added Miss Rebecca. 

‘ ‘ I think any respect for religion, any desire after ho- 
liness, any fear of sin, that may be found here and there 
in this neighborhood,” said Persis, “is due more to Mrs. 
Mumsey than to all other people put together. ” 

‘ ‘ She must be gifted in speaking of religion, ” said the 
forewoman. 

‘ ‘ She does not speak at all, ” said Persis ; ‘ ‘ she has a 
bronchial affection, and can scarcely speak above a whis- 
per. Instead of talking religion she lives it. ” 

“Which is even better.” 

“She is a small, frail, feeble old body, poor, forced 
to daily work for daily bread ; very lonely, for all her kin 
are gone ; but on her mouth is a smile of patient acqui- 
escence in all that comes, because it comes from God ; 
and in her eyes shines the light of a steadfast hope. I 
am going to see her this afternoon ; and whenever I go I 
feel benefited. But, Cousin Rebecca, you have not told 
me if I can tell your girls stories in the future. ” 


A BIBLE NURSE. 


103 

“Of course, if it doesn’t distract them any more than 
it did to-day,” said Miss Rebecca. It always soothed 
her feelings to observe how careful Persis was not to in- 
fringe on her especial work. In fact Persis was careful 
not to trespass on any one : Harriet Hughes adminis- 
tered the kindergarten without any interference ; Miss 
Susan was supreme in her flower- work room ; Mrs. Sayce 
conducted the sewing-classes and the Bible readings on 
her own lines ; Persis rendered all possible aid, stood 
back of all financially, but infringed on no one’s rights. 
For herself, she was learning more of the neighbors, more 
of their needs and peculiarities ; was making friends 
among them, and perhaps some enemies, like Suke 
Ryan. 

A field of work as Bible nurse more and more forced 
itself on her attention. As she “spied out the land” 
about Gardner Street she saw weakly, sore-eyed children 
who could be made strong and healthy by proper care. 
This the nurse could give, and meanwhile instruct the 
mothers in carrying out her plans ; she heard of sprains, 
fractures, burns ; there were wee babies to be suitably 
looked after, and sick mothers to be tided over a hard 
place, and old people with coughs and rheumatisms to 
be helped and made comfortable. 

Behind the Bible nurse must usually stand the com- 
mittee, or society, or wealthy friend, to supply the food, 
medicines, clothing, bedding, the thousand comforts 
needed by the sick. Persis as a Bible nurse sent out by 
herself, at her own charges, and responsible for all her 
expenses, found it needful first “to count the cost,” lest, 


104 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


having begun the work, she might not be able to finish. 
Her own monthly income, the expenses of the Gardner 
Street house, and the amount of money which she could 
put into her nursing business, must all be considered. 
By April all the rooms in the Gardner Street House were 
full. Miss Rebecca’s dressmaking, plus the one hundred 
and fifty dollars which she added to it, paid its way. 
Miss Susan could make the same report about her artifi- 
cial-flower work, with ten apprentices ; the sewing-classes 
and Bible class were supported by Mrs. Sayce. 

“You are proving a first-rate financier,” said Mr. 
Inskip. “I had no idea so much work could be done 
for so little money. In giving ten thousand dollars to 
your cousins, in repairing and furnishing the Gardner 
Street house, you used up a large share of the savings of 
your minority, upon which I prided myself ; but all the 
rest of your property is intact, and appreciating, and you 
are living eighteen hundred dollars within your income ; 
by re-investing that regularly we can bring affairs up 
again. ” 

‘ ‘ I shall reinvest it, but not in the w'ay you think of, ” 
said Persis. “A hundred a month I shall now assign to 
Bible nurse work ; three hundred yearly I will dedicate 
to summer vacation weeks, to some sick children and 
poor mothers among my clients ; and three hundred is to 
set up a new industry in Gardner Street. There are 
some women there working themselves to death on heavy 
overcoats and getting almost nothing for it. ” 

Mr. Inskip reluctantly gave up the idea of saving 
margins for Persis. “ Do n’t intrench on your capital,” 


A BIBLE NURSE. I05 

he implored ; he had nursed this capital so long that he 
felt it a sacrilege to infringe upon it. 

“I wont/’ said Persis laughing, ‘‘because that capi- 
tal gives me assured income for my work ; but be sure 
that I shall not save income — that is dedicated. ” 

Bright and happy in her new plans, Persis left Mr. 
Inskip’s office and hastened to her “ ward,” as she called 
it. Up the many stairs that led to the room of Maria 
Jane and Mrs. Moss she went. There the two were 
bending at their heavy work — worn and dull-eyed ; but 
they brightened at sight of Persis, and she could not fail 
to see that they looked less feeble, miserable and forsaken 
than they did when she came to Gardner Street. She had 
brought them friendship, new hope, some few comforts. 
She told herself that she had been too slow and cautious, 
and had left them to struggle too long. The nature of 
Persis was to hasten slowly, to prove all things, and un- 
dertake only what she was sure of carrying out. Cousin 
Rebecca and Mr. Inskip had fostered this trait ; both had 
feared that the enthusiastic zeal of Persis might outrun 
her judgment. 

“At last,” said Persis, “I have a plan for you ! If 
you like my plan this will be the last batch of coats you 
will touch.” 

“ I wish it might. It is killing us,” said Maria Jane ; 
“and between us we make only six fifty a week. And 
we have to work together. Mother could not do it alone ; 
it needs two.” 

“Very well. I can now give you easier work, and 
seven dollars a week, and a future. Think of that, 


io6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Maria Jane : to be building up to something better I 
You can go into Cousin Rebecca’s dressmaking, she will 
pay you three dollars and dinners from the start, and in 
six months or a year can no doubt get you as well placed 
as her other girls, with a wage of five or six dollars. 
Mrs. Moss, I ’m going to set up as Bible nurse for this 
district. I shall want a depot of sheets, pillow-cases, 
night-dresses, infants’ clothes, slings, bandages, and when 
I provide the material you can make up these things ; 
and in many cases they will need to be done up by you 
when they are exchanged. I will furnish soap and fuel, 
and you can have change of work — some washing, some 
sewing ; and then, I may need to call on you for some 
nursing help. You are to be my right hand. This will 
give you easier work, change, some out-of-door exercise, 
and I expect the various little perquisites will make you 
out about five dollars a week. Maria Jane, I want you 
to keep your courage up, for I mean to send you and 
your mother to the beach for a week or ten days in July, 
in charge of four or five little children. You will be 
boarded, and all you will have to do will be to play on 
the sand. Wont that be nice?” 

Persis’ cheeks and eyes were glowing with joy, the joy 
of service. Mrs. Moss and Maria Jane were fairly crying 
with relief, thankfulness, gratitude. 

“Come over to Cousin Rebecca to-morrow, Maria 
Jane,” said Persis, “and, Mrs. Moss, you had better take 
to-morrow for a house cleaning and general straight- 
ening out, preparatory to beginning on the material I 
shall send in to you the next day. ” 


A BIBLE NURSE. 


107 


Away went Persis, and then Maria Jane rose up in 
her might. “Mother ! It is two o’clock. We can get 
these coats done by four. Then let us make ourselves 
as neat as we can, take them home, say we don’t want 
any more, and when we get our money let us buy some 
cold meat and biscuits and cookies and get on a street 
car and go out to the Park, and stay there till dark ! 
We haven’t ever had an outing, and now I know the 
grass will be green, and the air is lovely and mild, and the 
Park will be full of people ; oh, let us hurry and do 
it. It seems as if I should be clear made over by a treat 
like that. ” 

“Why, Maria Jane, I do believe you are inclined to be 
extravagant,” said her mother. 

All the same, they both worked with a speed sus- 
tained by hope, and Maria Jane’s programme was carried 
out to a dot. They came home at nine o’clock, tired, 
but with a new, healthful weariness such as woos sleep ; 
and Maria Jane said she felt as if she had seen the world 
and been somebody. 

“Oh, mother, isn’t it beautiful to live to serve God and 
do good, as Miss Persis Thrale does ! I wonder why 
more folks don’t try it. Wouldn’t the world be lovely ! ” 
said Maria Jane. 

“Perhaps more do do it,” said Mrs. Moss, “but we 
do not know of them, and they don’t know of our Miss 
Thrale. ’Pears to me it must be so, for Miss Thrale says 
she finds all this in the Bible and her Christianity ; so of 
course there must be hundreds of folks living up to their 
Christianity the same way. ” 


io8 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Mighty queer that we never met ’em,” said Maria 
Jane. 

That evening the family, consisting of the Misses 
North and Harriet, were together, Katherine and Annie 
Clarke having come down as usual for the evening in the 
fajnily room, and Persis seized the opportunity to say, 
“At last I have made up my mind : I shall be a Bible 
nurse, in my own fashion and at my own charges. I find 
there is need for just such work around here, and it 
draws me more and more. I have been talking over af- 
fairs with Mr. Inskip and find I can support a nurse 
business very nicely.” 

“Pm afraid,” said Miss Susan, “that you will wear 
yourself out. You will deny yourself things that are 
needful to you. You will give all and keep nothing.” 

^ ‘ Oh I am much more greedy than that, ” said Persis. 
“Harriet and I are going for a month to the sea-shore, 
and we shall have the very best time that we can. Do I 
not dress as well as ever, and keep up my former acquaint- 
ances and go to my socials and clubs the same as ever ? 
I have not cut myself off from the world I lived in or the 
comforts of life. If I did, I should repel and discourage 
many whom I hope by degrees to interest in this work 
that I am doing, so that they can select some part of the 
city for a field of labor and work as they see to be good. 
Cousin Rebecca, I want you and Cousin Susan to go 
away for a vacation before or after Harriet and I go. 
I think it will prolong life and working force for you. 
We must not forget that the laborer is worthy of his hire.” 

Then Persis explained her plan of nurse work, and 


A BIBLE NURSE. 


109 


how Mrs. Moss was to help her. ‘ ‘ I want your girls to 
make me two uniform-suits of grey, Cousin Rebecca, 
and then as they have time make three flannel wrappers 
and four cotton ones for my invalids. There is an order 
for you.’" 

‘ ‘ Glad of it. We were pretty nearly out of work, ” said 
Miss North. 

“Persis is a good girl,” said Miss Rebecca to Miss 
Susan, when they were alone in their room ; “an 
excellent girl ; but heady. It is well that she has us here 
to think for her a little. ” 

“Why, sister Rebecca, I thought she was unusually 
prudent, and such a judicious planner. ” 

“I don’t fully take to having her run round in a 
nurse’s dress,” said Miss Rebecca, shaking her head ; “ she 
should consider what she is born to and the credit of the 
family. I like to see her well dressed. She wears hand- 
some clothes easily and naturally, and they become her. 
A Thrale might do better than wear a grey barege gown 
and cloak.” 

“The reasons she gave for using the uniform of a 
nurse were to me quite convincing,” said Miss Susan. 
“You know her nursing hours will be from eight until 
half-past twelve. In the afternoon she will wear her 
usual dress.” 

Miss Rebecca was still unappeased. “I’ve never felt 
quite sure of the sense of her living here and associating 
with such poor commonplace people. The Thrales 
have always lived up town and held their heads high.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, sister Rebecca ! Pride goeth before destruction, 


no 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and a haughty spirit before a fall. Our dear Lord left 
the throne of glory to live with simple men ; and he 
had not where to lay his head. The way of the Master 
may surely be good enough for the servant. ” 

“Yes, there is that way of looking at it. But if 
every one abandoned her station in life to work at phi- 
lanthropy what would become of the world, sister 
Susan .? ” 

“It might be better off every way, sister Rebecca.” 

“However, she is young ; she may marry, and return 
to her fitting place. ” 

‘ ‘ She has not abandoned her place : she has not 
given up her old friends. She calls on them, visits them: 
goes to teas and clubs, and she and Harriet you know 
often have a carriage and gooff to lectures and concerts; 
they have invited us. time and again, only we would not 
go. Persis says the way to interest her friends, the circle 
she has moved in, in this work which she is doing, is to 
gcT among them and let them see she is not warped or iso- 
lated by her new life ; and to have them come here and 
see how we manage, and meet our people. You know 
she has begun to invite two or three of her old friends to 
come to her Thursday socials and help entertain ; and has 
sent out ‘ at home cards for Tuesday and Saturday even- 
ings, so that her friends may come and discuss Clubs, and 
Settlements, and various branches of philanthropy. ” 

“I only hope she will keep it up, and not drift down 
and down among these people until she is only a worn- 
out unthanked drudge,” said Miss Rebecca, who often 
fell into a misanthropic mood. 


A BIBLE NURSE. 


Ill 


Miss Susan, on the contrary, always walked in the 
sunshine. Of the two, Persis loved Miss Susan best 
and found Miss Rebecca the best adviser ; for her very 
pessimism secured a careful investigation of both sides 
of every question. 

The first day on which Persis set forth in her nurse’s 
uniform, bag in hand, she found herself watched from 
every window and door in the neighborhood. She had 
laid her plans, looked out her cases, and received “point- 
ters ” from Serena Bowles and Mrs. Moss. 

“I have come to help you look after Jenny, Mrs. 
Small. I hear she has a slow fever. Has she had a 
doctor 

“Yes, but he says she needs nursing more than 
doctoring, and I do n’t know what to do — me so busy, 
and not knowing anything about nursing. Maybe you 
do. Miss.’’ 

“ I think so. Let me take charge of the case. She 
needs a good warm soda bath, and a clean gown and 
bed. While I am getting that ready let us air this 
room, and then darken it, give her some nourishment, 
and put her to sleep.” 

“She can’t sleep, and she wont eat. Miss.” 

“We’ll see about that. You’ll drink some lem- 
onade, wont you, Jenny ? And, if you take a good sleep, 
to-morrow I will make you a funny pig out of a lemon. ” 

“Oh, ain’t you handy! What a blessing it is to 
know things,” sighed Mrs. Small, as Persis bathed Jen- 
ny, combed and braided her hair, made lemonade, and 
finally laid the refreshed child in a well-made bed. 


II2 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


‘ ‘ There, now ! Shut your eyes, and think about 
that lemon pig ! Mrs. Small, keep the window open, 
the door into the next room shut, put down the curtain, 
and do n’t let anyone but yourself come in here. After 
she wakes up mop the floor. Put this stuff in a bowl 
of water on the stand. Remember, it is poison. It 
is a disinfectant. Mrs. Moss will bring Jenny another 
clean gown and some beef tea at noon. What noise is 
that I hear ?” 

“Comes from Suke Ryan’s room. My! ain’t she 
going on !’* 

Persis hastened to Suke Ryan’s room. The woman 
had just scalded her foot terribly. “ Here I am I” cried 
Persis ; “let me see to that foot. That is a bad burn I 
Now just do as I tell you and I will make you comfort- 
able. ” She put Suke in her rocking-chair, and seeing 
only a dirty gingham apron at hand laid that on the 
floor before her and emptied upon it about five pounds 
of flour that stood in a paper bag in the corner. Placing 
the burnt foot on the flour, she carefully brought it up 
thickly over the scalded skin, and then bound the edges 
of the apron about it. 

“Now, about noon I’ll come in and paint the foot 
thickly with glycerine-and-bismuth paste, and I do n’t 
think you will have any more pain ; only you must keep 
quiet, and let me dress it every day. Now I will make 
your room comfortable ; let me tip back your chair a 
little more. ” 

She made up the bed, swept the floor, and rubbed 
the dusty stove with a newspaper. 


A BIBLE NURSE. 


13 


^'Now here is a basin of water; wash your face and 
hands and I will comb your hair. I have wrappers to 
loan my patients ; at noon Mrs. Gayley shall bring you 
one, and also your dinner. I will send you a clean 
pillow case and ask Mrs. Gayley to mop your floor. 
There, now ; the window is open and the air is pleasant. 
I will put this stand by you, and your work ; if you 
work you wont notice your foot so much. ” 

“Well, you are good to a body, if you are a religious 
one cried Suke. 

“Why don’t you say, ‘You are good to a body be- 
cause you are a religious one?” said Persis. “The 
Bible says, ‘To do good — forget not.’ Did you ever 
hear the story of the Good Samaritan ?” 

“ No, I never did.” 

“I’ll read it to you, and you can think of it while 
you work.” 

She began, “ ‘ A certain man went . . . and fell 
among thieves.’” 

“Yes,” said Suke, “that’s just it ; perlice never on 
hand when they are wanted. Kinder out in the coun- 
try, I s’pose.” 

Persis read on, “leaving him half dead.”’ 

“Poor critter ! Wonder how much money they took 
from him.” 

‘ ‘ ‘ And by chance there came down a certain priest 
that way. . 

“Oh, I’ll warrant; jest like them priests! I never 
took stock in ’em, nor in parsons neither — Doctor Bond 
nor the lot of ’em. ” 


New Samaritan. 


8 


114 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“ ‘And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, 
came and looked. ’ 

“Oh, yes, they stare. I reckon if you had n’t come 
in, and I ’d screeched awhile, every woman in the house 
would ’a ’ been in here staring, as if that ’d help me 
any !” 

“‘But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came 
where he was. ’ ” 

‘ ‘ S’mar’tan ? I never saw that breed of people. I ’ve 
seen Jews and Poles and Swedes and Hungarians and 
Scotch ; no S’mar’tans.” 

“‘And bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and 
wine. ’ ” 

“Do tell! What queer medicine. Never knew oil 
and wine was good for cuts before. Wonder how he 
came to have them handy.” 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


II5 


CHAPTER IX. 

IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 

“ ‘ Blessed they who do his bidding,’ cries the angel day and night, 
‘ They shall find abundant entrance ; they shall walk with Him in 
white.’ ” 

“ Don’t you get tired of it all, Persis?” asked Miss 
Rebecca, as her young kinswoman one April day left the 
breakfast table and took up her grey cloak and bag. 
“Don’t you long for your old Egypt, as the Hebrews 
longed in the wilderness — the Egypt of good clothes, easy 
times, amusement, vacations ? ” 

“No, Cousin Rebecca, I do not. I was never better 
satisfied in my life ; never happier. I had twenty-five 
years of gathering, harvesting, accumulating, whatever 
you may call it, and the time had come when I ought to 
go out for seed-sowing, and distributing what I had 
gained. I was never in better health than now. If I 
found my strength failing a particle I should see it to be 
my duty to go oif for a rest. But my work suits me, and 
I do good.” ^ 

“You certainly do do good, Persis,” said Rebecca. 
“I know more than one life has been saved here by 
your nursing, and see what different beings Annie Clarke 
and Maria Jane are ! You are making a new woman of 
Mrs. Moss, and of Mrs. Bowles too, and Trinka owes 
everything to you. Yes, you are doing good.” 


ii6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


It was seldom that Miss Rebecca spoke out so warmly 
of Persis’ work. That morning she was particularly 
pleased, for the previous evening Persis had asked her to 
go over her month’s account of the nursing work ; and 
then they had reckoned up the cost of the various vaca- 
tions Persis was to supply money for, and Persis had 
taken Cousin Rebecca’s advice not to use three hundred 
for starting some small new industry, but to hold it in 
reserve for emergencies in the Nursing and Vacation line. 
“It is well not to cramp what you have begun, Persis ; 
and it is better to do two or three things thoroughly 
than more poorly. These vacations will cost heavier 
than you think, and be worth more than you, who 
always have had them, can guess. ” 

So Persis accepted Miss North’s advice, and Miss 
North looked benignly at Persis and praised her work. 

“I am receiving, in largeness of life, far more than I 
give. Cousin Rebecca,” said Persis, as she buttoned her 
cloak. “ I more and more measure all else by eternity. 
I live by hope, that hope of the resurrection and the im- 
mortal life which the apostle knows and speaks of as 
hope. In ministering to others I am ministered unto 
myself. When things here look discouraging, and I feel 
as if no progress was being made, then I turn my eyes to 
the heavenly horizon and find it large and bright. ” 

Cousin Rebecca proceeded up stairs to her work- 
room considering that she would give her girls for a text 
that day, “What shall it profit a man if he gain the 
whole world and lose his own soul ; or what shall a 
man give in exchange for his soul ? ” 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


II7 


Persis, bag in hand, went down the street. Her ob- 
jective point was little Mrs. Tull’s home, where there was 
a very glad young mother and a fat new baby to be cared 
for. As she passed Mrs. Hook’s out ran that worthy 
dame, surrounded as usual by her own brood of children 
and Tommy Tibbets. 

‘‘Oh, Miss, wont you please stop ! ” 

“Nothing wrong with any of you, I hope, Mrs. 
Hook ? ” 

“Oh, no ; but it is about Tommy.” 

“Tommy looks all right; they are going to school, 
are n’t they ? ” 

“True, Miss, but it is that I can’t keep Tommy long- 
er. My man I am looking for every day, in from a two 
years’ voyage, and he won’t abide to see us loaded up 
with Tommy. Why, Miss, did you ever count heads for 
me? Seven, if there’s one, and poor little Tommy, he is 
eight. And do but look at the two rooms. Miss, for ten 
to live in, sleeping, cooking, eating, working. Why 
they’re that full you can’t swing a cat in ’em ! To get on 
so for ourselves. Miss, it isn’t decent, nor possible longer. 
I have hired out my Katy, for board and clothes, to the 
grocer’s wife down on the corner, and bargained she is 
not to be put upon over and beyond her strength ; and 
she is to go to the night school at your house. Miss. And 
Katy is only eleven ; poor child, she has to start out early ! 
And Ben I’ve hired to the butcher in Webster Street for 
home and clothes, and free Sundays and night school too. 
So, Miss, my man wont think it looks to reason, me putting 
out my own and keeping Tommy, that is no kith or kin.” 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Il8 

“That is true,” said Miss Thrale gravely. “You 
have been very good and liberal. It is time Tommy was 
put where he can be looked after and brought up. You 
have been very kind. Til see to him.” 

“You'll find them as will be good to the mite, and 
let me see him sometimes, Miss ? 

“Yes, indeed ; you ve been a real mother to him.” 

“But you've helped me out liberal with him. When 
will you take him ? ” 

“ Now,” said Persis, promptly. “ ‘ If it is well when 
it is done, then it is well that it were done quickly.' 
Come on. Tommy.” 

Persis took Tommy's plump hand and went on, think- 
ing that here was a homeless child while the world was 
full of childless homes, and how many people would be 
proud of Tommy if they had him. But what should she 
do with Tommy ? 

It was not far to Serena Bowles, and Serena was a good 
counsellor. They went up the stairs. Tommy sturdily 
clambering along step after step. Serena was just ready- 
to begin ironing. Her irons were hot, a basket of neatly 
folded clothes stood under the ironing board. Persis 
perched Tommy on a chair and stated his case. 

“I've been thinking of him. I knew it would come 
soon. Tom Hook ain't a very easy-going man.” 

“I'm prepared to pay his board and buy him a 
bed,” said Persis. “And you know he spends every 
morning at the kindergarten, and Mrs. Gayley gives him 
three or four baths a week, and I provide his clothes. 
He is a nice child, Serena.” 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


II9 

“So he is! Wish I had him; but there is Jim 
Bowles, he ’d go off his head. He do n’t like children. ” 

“You know the neighborhood better than I do, 
Serena. Where can I put him, where he can have kindness 
and good influences ?” said Persis, secretly thinking that 
in their attitude towards children Cousin Rebecca and 
Jim Bowles were greatly alike. 

“Put him with Mrs. Mumsey, over there across the 
hall,” said the prompt Serena. “ Her hands are getting 
too stiff to work fast and she hardly makes enough to 
keep her ; she could n’t live, only she has her two little 
rooms rent free. Mrs. Glover, who owned the house^ 
made her son promise when she died that Mrs. Mumsey 
was to be free of rent all her life. Dr. Bond’s ladies re- 
member her at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and so she 
manages ; but if you gave her Tommy, and paid a dollar 
a week for him, she ’d be just made. After all you do 
for the child there is not much expense left, and I ’ll do 
his washing. There, do n’t say you ’ll pay for it, for I 
wont take a cent. It is little enough I can do to serve 
the Lord by helping my neighbors ; but I can rub up 
those clothes, and I mean to do it.” 

“And you think Mrs. Mumsey would take Tommy?” 

“She’d be glad to. She dotes on children; she is 
lonesome ; in two or three years more Tommy could be a 
real help to her, going errands and so on. It ’s true she 
isn’t likely to live to see him grown up, but she’ll give 
him such a start towards heaven while she does live that 
his feet wont easily be turned out of the straight and 
narrow way.” 


120 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“I’ll go and speak to her,” said Persis. “Come, 
Tommy. ” 

Tommy, for whom the important matter of a home 
and a foster mother were being settled, with delightful 
unconcern was playing with his bare toes, and trying to 
count them. When Persis took him into Mrs. Mum- 
sey’s room he went and rested his arm on the old lady’s 
lap, and leaned his head back on her breast, with great 
content. 

“And how comes Tommy here this time in the morn- 
ing?” said Mrs. Mumsey. “ I thought it was kindergar- 
ten time.” 

^ “Tommy is like Gideon's Band, ‘hunting for a 
home,’” said Persis, and detailed the plan suggested by 
Serena. 

“Now may the dear Lord bless you for the good 
thought,” said Mrs. Mumsey; “but there, it was the 
Lord himself that put it into your mind ! The dollar a 
week will make me quite comfortable ; but that is not 
the best of it. I have been so lonesome, miss! I’m 
wakeful nights, and I feel so lonely then I I ’ve often 
thought that a child of God has no right to ever feel like 
that, seeing the Father is never far away. But I ’m old 
and weakly, and no doubt he makes my excuse. It will 
be such a comfort when I ’m wakeful just to put out my 
hand and find the little warm, comfortable creature slum- 
bering there in his little bed. I tell you. Miss Thrale, 
we’re both children. Tommy and me, and we’ll fit very 
well. Tommy’s in his first childhood, and I’m creeping 
to my second, and we ’ll take real comfort together I I 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


I2t 

shall so love to tell him Bible stories and teach him 
verses. You'll love me, Tommy.?” 

“Yes,” said Tommy, his round cheeks dimpling as 
he looked up hastily from under his long lashes, and then 
down again, and began to trace with his finger the pat- 
tern of Mrs. Mumsey's gown. 

‘ ‘ Little Lena, on the first floor here, comes to kin- 
dergarten, and will bring him every day, ” said Persis. 
“I will send over a cot and bedding, a little rocking- 
chair, and a few dishes. Mrs. Gayley bathes him three 
or four times a week, and he always has his dinner with 
Mrs. Massey. Come, Tommy, since your lot in life is 
settled for a season I think you must go to school, and 
I must make my rounds. Thank you so much for taking 
the child, Mrs. Mumsey.” 

“Oh, Miss, it is a privilege! Doesn’t it say in 
Scripture, ‘Whoso receiveth one such little child re- 
ceiveth me .?’ ” 

Persis went her way laying the verse to heart. Had 
she missed an opportunity of receiving Christ .? Was she 
putting herself out of the line of blessing? With her 
usual slow, long-sighted way of considering plans and 
questions, she laid this up to be discussed on all sides 
and finally settled. At present she had her nursing 
duties for the morning to occupy all her attention. Lit- 
tle Mrs. Tull was to receive her first cares. 

‘ ‘ How neat you look in here, ” said Persis ; the floor 
was swept, the stove clean, the bedclothes straightened. 

“Jonathan did that,” said Mrs. Tull, proudly. 
“Jonathan can turn his hand to anything. He did n't 


122 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


want you to find things careless looking. It made me 
laugh to see how carefully he washed the dishes and put 
them by.” 

^‘He is worth his weight in gold,” said Persis. 
“ Have you had anything to eat ?” 

“Jonathan made me a cup of tea, and I had some 
bread and butter with it. ” 

“All right. Now I will see that you are washed and 
have a clean gown, and that this baby is dressed. Then 
I will make you some Graham gruel, and at noon Mrs. 
Gayley will bring you a bowl of Cousin Rebecca’s soup. 
I hope you are remembering what I have told you about 
keeping perfectly quiet, not having any visiting or gos- 
sipping ; allow only one person in here at a time, and 
use no water for any purpose at all unless it has been 
well boiled.” 

“Yes, indeed. Miss; I remember it all. Jonathan 
and I would no more disobey a word you lay down than 
if it was the law and the gospel. I feel so safe, knowing 
you understand just how everything should be.” 

“It is well to have a quiet time now, to do some 
thinking,” said Persis, as she picked up the baby. 
“You have a new duty in life. It depends largely upon 
you whether this little man spends his days in travelling 
toward heaven, and reaches there in the end, or not. 
You must consider now that in the ways where you and 
your husband walk little feet will come pattering after 
you. You must love this child, teach him, set him a 
good example, pray for him and pray with him. Begin 
well, go on well, and you will end well. You know 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


123 


where you can get wisdom and strength. God gives to 
all that ask. There, now Mr. Baby is in order and I 
will make that gruel. Here is a new large-print text to 
hang on the wall, to give you a little fresh thought as you 
lie here quietly. Are there any more cases around here 
that you know of.?” 

‘ ‘ Mrs. Koon's baby is sick ; she asked me to tell 
you. ” 

‘ ‘ She ’s been feeding it pork and pickles probably, ” 
said Persis, with a trace of Miss Rebecca's grimness. 

‘ ‘ If mothers will turn their babies' stomachs into whole- 
sale groceries they cannot expect them to keep well. '' 

“Yet some children eat everything, and seem to 
thrive. '' 

“Seem to for a time, but in the long run injudicious 
feeding tells. The constitution, morals and brains of 
the children suffer accordingly. Mind you feed this 
child of yours according to the laws and intentions of 
nature. It is easy if you begin right. '' 

A tap came at the door, and a little girl looked in : 
“Oh, Miss Thrale, mammy's hurt her foot dreadful !'' 

“ I '11 be there in five minutes. Go and get hot water 
ready, Jenny. Hot water is always in order,'' said Persis. 

“Since you cured Suke Ryan's foot,'' said Mrs. Tull, 
“she is a great champion of yours. Jonathan said yes- 
terday she slapped a woman in the face for saying you 
were a fool to live here nursing if you were rich enough 
to live up town and ride in your carriage and do nothing. 
They came near getting Suke arrested, but some of the 
other women made peace between them. '' 


124 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


^‘I wish, instead of slapping people in my behalf, 
Suke would quit her drinking, come to Bible readings, 
and try to be a good woman,” said Persis, as she finished 
making the gruel and placed it on a little stand by Mrs. 
Tull. 

“I’m afraid that will never be. Miss Thrale. Suke 
is the greatest heathen in the world, I do truly believe.” 

Bright and happy, Persis went from house to house 
in her morning rounds. Her health was perfect, she 
enjoyed her duties, and felt that she was doing good. 
What a real guardian angel she was to her neighborhood 
she did not realize, for daily self obtruded less and less 
into the thoughts of Persis. She was so busy for others 
that self was passing out of sight. If now she had re- 
called how but a few months before she stood outside of 
Katherine Clarke’s door wondering how she could make 
acquaintance, she would have given a surprised laugh. 
It was so easy now to make acquaintance with people. 
The secret was that she was now so interested in people. . 

Early in February Persis had secured the opening of 
a night school in the kindergarten room five evenings in 
a week. Some young friends of Harriet Hughes and her- 
self, college seniors, three ladies and three gentlemen, 
had agreed to establish the night school, teaching by two 
and two in turn. Agreeably to her usual plan, Persis left 
this enterprise entirely in the hands of its conductors, fur- 
nishing room, fuel and light, and securing pupils whenever 
she could do so in her rounds in the neighborhood, but 
in no wise interfering further. This plan not only saved 
Persis from being overworked and becoming nervous, but 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


125 


it left her coadjutors in philanthropic work room to de- 
velop their own schemes, and gave the people for whom 
they were working the advantage of new methods and 
new friends. 

Persis was indefatigable in a quiet way in securing 
helpers. She bore the needs of her work in mind, and 
where she saw among her friends those who could supply 
a need she was not slow to make request. Much of the 
work done in Miss North’s dressmaking school came 
through the quiet suggestion here and there of Persis. 
She had among her friends a railroad director, and un- 
folding to him her scheme of summer vacations for some 
of her poor friends she was promised passes for their 
trips to the beach or country. An old acquaintance of 
Persis’ mother, who had always been a familiar friend to 
the daughter, had a little plain sea-side cottage which 
she seldom used. Persis got the loan of this for a month 
for Mrs. Gayley and Trinka, Mrs. Moss, Maria Jane and 
three children. Through another friend, directress of a 
health-resort home for ladies in reduced circumstances, 
she secured a ticket for a month for Katherine and Annie 
Clarke, giving them a whole month by the sea at no 
expense. 

A great scheme grew upon her for Serena Bowles and 
Mrs. Mumsey and Tommy : she and Harriet laughed 
over it by the half hour, and made various explorations. 
The idea was no less than to find a country home sup- 
plied with a due quantity of “popple and bombergilear 
trees” and send these three for a July vacation. 

“Why don’t you just find out where she used to live 


126 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and have her trees, and send her back there ? ” asked Miss 
Rebecca. 

“Not for the world ! ” cried Persis. “ That is now to 
her a beautiful memory. She enjoyed that place in the 
possession of hope, youth and health. If she went there 
now she could not possibly enjoy it as she once did ; a 
shadow would lie over it, disappointment would cleave 
to it, and she could never rest in its beautiful idea again. 
I will send her where she will expect nothing, and thus 
cannot be disappointed ; so any ‘ trembling poplar shade, ’ 
any ‘ bombergilear’ tree, will come to her as an unexpect- 
ed joy.” 

“I don’t know what Jim Bowles will say when 
Serena gets an outing which he is not to share,” said Miss 
Susan. 

“He’ll fret,” said Persis. “It will be worth much 
to Jim to have a real good reason for fretting. There is 
nothing he enjoys so much as to find himself a martyr. 
One thing is sure: Serena shall have a vacation from Jim’s 
selfish exactions and complainings, as well as from 
work. ” 

Persis had said nothing to Serena about this plan ; she 
intended to reserve it until the time came near to carry 
it out. She herself took much pleasure in thinking of it, 
and succeeded in finding a lonely, old-fashioned farm 
house with plenty of trees, and wide fragrant fields, where 
the good housewife was very glad to have Serena, Mrs. 
Mumsey and Tommy for boarders. 

“Why, Miss,” she said to Persis, who had made her 
acquaintance in the market and went out to investigate, 


IN HUMBLE DUTIES. 


127 


“what you offer me for a month is n’t only good pay but 
it will be just so much clear gain to us, for we raise all 
we use. ril like the company too, fine. Tve always 
wished for summer boarders, but we ain't furnished 
up enough for rich ones ; and we 're quiet folk, I an' my 
man, and don't want those as our blessing at table and 
our prayers in our own humble way would seem queer 
to. Folks that will just come in free and kind, like a 
family with us, will suit all round, clear down to the 
ground : I know 'it will." 

These words were in Persis' mind one warm May 
morning, when she passed Serena's door on her way to a 
patient in the back part of the same house. 

Serena's door was open, the usual white grove of gar- 
ments interrupted and shut off any free wandering of air 
through the room heated by the ironing fire. Under the 
table the willow basket was heaped high with closely 
rolled and dampened clothes ; Serena, in a calico skirt and 
light calico sacque, was busy quilling ruffles, her face 
moist and crimson from heat. 

“ Find it pretty warm, Serena? " said Persis stopping. 

“ Indeed, yes. Heat coming so sudden, one feels it. 
La, it is not to equal what it is later, say in July and 
August, but by that time one gets a little used to it. 
I was just telling myself I had no call to fret over heat 
when I had steady work to be thankful for. Then, when 
the terrible hot weather comes, most of my ladies are off 
for summer vacation, and I have n't much to do." 

“You ought to take a vacation yourself, Serena." 

“Oh, bless you, 1 couldn’t afford it ! Last summer I 


128 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


was real extravagant, and took my dinner and Mrs. Mumsey 
and we spent three days in the park. Maybe we’ll do as 
much this year. Mrs. Mumsey really does need a change ; 
she is a frail body. However, if the Lord sees she must 
have it He knows how to give it to her ; and for me, I 
take no end of comfort in considering that I’m not here 
to enjoy but to glorify. If I do my duty, glorifying 
God, he’ll see to it that I get my full share of enjoying over 
there where nothing offends. But don’t think I mean I 
can earn anything for myself, or can do the glorifiying of 
myself, without the Lord’s help. That’s a good verse. 
Miss, ' It is God that worketh in you to will and to do 
of his good pleasure. ’ ” 

As Persis went down the hall she heard Serena 
singing— 

“A charge to keep I have : 

A God to glorify.” 

Poor Serena ! ” said Persis smiling to herself. ^‘She 
is truly glorifying God in the fires ; and I think she is 
really happy. I wonder what she will say to a vaca- 
tion. ” 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWER^. 


CHAPTER X. 

THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. 

“ Some humble door among thy many mansions, 

Some sheltering shade where sin and sorrow cease, 

And flows forever through heaven’s green expansions 
The river of thy peace.” 

It was a happy characteristic of Persis, and one which 
especially fitted her for the mission she had under- 
taken, that while she threw herself heartily into her work 
when she was doing it she was able to withdraw her 
mind from it entirely when the duty of the hour war 
done. When she visited her friends in different partr. 
the city, and with all her former enthusiasm took part in 
their plans and discussions, and the talk turned, as it 
often did, on her life in Gardner Street, she was able to 
describe it and argue about it as fully and debate upon 
it as dispassionately as if it was entirely the affair of 
another. 

‘‘Persis Thrale,” said one of her friends at an after- 
noon tea, “I don't see how, with all your money and 
education and refined tastes, you can go down there and 
live in the slums. ” 

“lam not living in the slums, but in a very respect- 
able neighborhood. Come and assure yourself by see- 
ing.” 

“Well, I thought it queer when I heard you were 

New Samaritan. Q j 

I 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


in the slums, among the hoodlums. Of course, 
ou 'd be afraid. ” 

*‘I don’t think I should be afraid, or that there 
would be any occasion for fear. I believe that any per- 
son armed with good intentions, good common-sense, a 
real philanthropy, a simple desire to benefit the souls and 
bodies of others, can live safely and do this proposed 
work in any quarter. Especially is this true of nurses 
who wear their distinctive dress, so that their vocation is 
recognized. They are associated with help, usefulness, 
unselfish kindness, and, as far as I know, are treated 
with respect by even the rudest and most degraded.” 

“For my part,” spoke up another friend, “if I were 
to go into such work at all, it is to the rudest and most 
degraded that I should go. Their need seems to be 
eater, the results of work could be more quickly seen. 
Aid then there would be more interest and excitement to 
be had out of it. You, Persis, were always so thorough- 
going in everything that I wonder you stopped half way 
in your Gardner Street ‘ respectability. ’ ” 

“Morally speaking,” said Persis, “I am not going 
on a warfare at my own charges. In all this new work 
I go as I have been led. The work in the Gardner Street 
neighborhood seemed especially marked out for me. 
The first people in whom I became deeply interested 
were from that locality, of the respectable working poor ; 
not the people of the slums. I own the Gardner Street 
house ; it was well fitted for my purpose, and left vacant 
at the exact time I needed it. All this seemed the 
directing of Providence. My various friends, my former 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. I3I 

guardian, would have been very uneasy about me if I 
had settled to work in one of the worst parts of the city. 
I think I should have feared nothing, but they would 
have feared much.” 

“Seems to me,” said a fashionable young society 
girl, putting on an aspect of complete boredom, “that 
you would be tired to death by the monotony of it all. 
This ‘ life among the lowly ' must have a distressing same- 
ness. I should die if I did not have variety. ” 

“As far as my experience goes,” said Persis, “there 
is very little variety in society life : one day, one enter- 
tainment, one style of conversation, closely like every 
other. But, Laura, there is no monotony in the devel- 
opments of misery : the individual suffering may have a 
monotony of likeness from day to day, but the general 
suffering has endless variations, forever new develop- 
ments, the constant excitement of new dangers and new 
demands. One is kept forever on the alert. ” 

“My greatest puzzle is,” cried another friend, “how, 
with all your culture, you can accommodate yourself to 
the constant society of ignorant people. ” 

“You are simply mistaken about my surroundings. 
My two cousins, the Misses North, though poor, are 
women of refined tastes and the education usual to 
ladies of their time. Katherine and Annie Clarke are 
high-school graduates, and have been teachers. They 
and the Misses North are from cultivated families. Har- 
riet Hughes lives with me, and few have had better 
advantages, social or literary, than Harriet. Do I shut 
myself away from this pleasing society of old friends in 


132 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


the midst of which you now behold me ? If you lived in 
Gardner Street you would see that I have plenty of calls 
from this highly aristocratic quarter where we now find 
ourselves. I believe it due to my work to keep myself 
fresh and abreast of the thought of the times. Then I 
can bring ‘ forth out of my treasures things new and old. ’ 
Also, I know I am interesting my friends in my new 
work. ” 

“If you could interest us in something entirely fresh 
and new for the summer it would be a blessing,” said 
one. “lam tired of Cape May, Saratoga, White Moun- 
tains, the Falls. Give us something new, Persis.” 

“I will,” said Persis, flashing up into great energy. 

‘ ‘ Here are ten of you, with the summer at your disposal 
and money for all your needs. Form a Summer-home 
Club. Hire at the sea-side, or where you choose, a 
house large enough for yourselves, each one to be accom- 
panied by a child needing a summer home ; each one of 
you to be responsible for the clothing, training, mental 
and moral and physical care of the child that belongs to 
you. As for servants, you will need three or four, and I 
know how it is : when families close out their homes for 
the long vacation there are among them good servants 
who would be glad to go for an outing of this kind. 
Appoint of yourselves a committee to secure the house, 
a committee to secure servants, and wholesale your gro- 
ceries. Then divide up the housekeeping among you, 
and for one season be useful as well as ornamental. ” 

“But the children, Persis ; who will be committee on 
children .?” 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. 1 33 

“I will," said Persis. “You can send in your 
orders as to sex, age and appearance of your respective 
proteges, and whether you particularly desire healthy 
youngsters or will take a cripple or two, or some anaemic 
little elf who is dying for common comforts. " 

The girls looked at each other amazed. “We '11 talk 
it over and let you know next week, Persis, ” they said at 
last. 

“You'll do it," said Persis laughing; “the rabies 
juvandi has seized you. I believe it is natural to wo- 
men." 

These vacation plans made life very bright to Persis 
that summer. Her cousins Rebecca and Susan had not 
had an outing-time since they were little girls, and Persis 
succeeded in making them take three weeks at the sea- 
side — the forewoman and Annie Clarke taking charge of 
the two work-rooms. 

The Clarke girls came home from their month at the 
“Summer Rest" looking ten years younger ; Annie was 
no longer the frail creature apparently near to death 
whom Persis had found that November night. Warmth, 
sunshine, better food, hope, friendship, had re-created 
Annie, and lifted the burden from Katherine's heart. 

Perhaps no one was really happier that summer than 
Serena Bowles and Mrs. Mumsey at the farmhouse with 
Tommy. They went away for July, as then nearly all 
Serena's patrons were away for the summer, and what 
little work remained to her a neighbor was glad to take. 

“The Summer-home Club" formed itself, and ten 
rejoicing children went away under its protection, to 


34 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


secure permanent interest in the hearts of their gay young 
patronesses. Other ailing children, and overworked 
mothers, and joy-bereft old people, were also provided 
with a care-free vacation lasting from a week to a 
month. 

When, in August, Harriet and Persis left Miss Rebec- 
ca at the head of affairs and went off for their own six 
weeks’ change and pleasure, the “summer vacation 
money” had all been laid out and, to their thinking, 
brought admirable returns. They came home in mid- 
September ready to take up again all their work and 
prosecute it with fresh vigor. 

One day, late in September, when Persis in her gray 
garb with her newly replenished bag was on her rounds, 
she met a gentleman whose face seemed familiar — so 
much so that she half paused and he did the same. 
Each looked again. Then, “Surely — Miss Thrale !” 

“Tom Trenton ! yes, it is.” 

“I knew you by your eyes — and smile. I felt it 
must be Miss Thrale ; yet this dress — this uniform. I 
remembered you as rich.” 

“Of course,” said Persis, “so I am. I have 'an in- 
heritance incorruptible,’ treasures where thieves do not 
break through and steal: 'the riches of the full assur- 
ance,’ 'the exceeding riches of God’s grace,’ 'the hidden 
riches of secret places ’ — no end of riches. ” 

“That is the best kind, surely, and all that is want- 
ed,” said Tom Trenton, shaking hands again in his great 
delight at the meeting. "And this dress; what is it 
exactly 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. I35 

“Nurse's uniform. I’m a Bible nurse.” 

“ For what church ?” 

“None,” said Persis cheerfully. 

“For what Society, or Committee? Who stands 
back of you ?” 

“No Society and nobody. I stand back of myself.” 

“I supposed a nursing enterprise required consider- 
able money.” 

“Oh, it does ! The demands are as insatiable as the 
leech’s daughters.” 

“And who, then, provides the charges?” 

“ I do. I have'not lost the fortune which you knew 
I had. I have dedicated it — laid it on the altar, and 
myself with it ; and now I am finding life well worth 
living. Now I have said my catechism : say yours. 
When I spent that vacation in the country, boarding at 
your mother’s, you were about to enter college with a 
view to the ministry.” 

“And I did. I took my course in college and in 
the Theological school, was duly ordained, and am hard 
at work.” 

“Where?” 

“Not far from here — I have a Mission in Dorsey 
Street.” 

“For what church?” demanded Persis laughing. 

“For several. It is a Union Mission, and four or 
five churches support it. A very good building has been 
bought and arranged ; the ground floor has a Dispensary, 
a Labor Bureau, a Reading Room, a Personal Interest 
Headquarters.! The second floor is my home, where I 


136 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


have a like-minded wife and an elderly handmaid, who 
looks after our comfort and finds time to succor the 
afflicted. The third floor has our church and Sunday- 
school room, and the attics are reserved for worthy 
casuals. The ladies of the churches who maintain the 
work form what is called a ‘ Personal Interest Society, ' 
each one having in charge one or tv/o families to whom 
to be a friend and helper. It works well, I can tell you !” 

‘^Now here is my house, ’’said Persis, “and I cannot 
go in, for I have two or three cases yet on my morning 
list. I want you to bring your wife to tea at five o’clock, 
look over the house, see what we are doing — for I am not 
alone in my work — and stay to my Thursday evening 
social ; you may find new parishioners. A church at 
hand is what we want. ” 

“Such work as this of yours,” said Mr. Trenton that 
evening, when he and his wife had been shown through 
the Gardner Street house and were seated at the tea-table, 
“restores the true meaning of the word charity — love, 
love to the neighbor — fellow-feeling. The old Greeks 
meant by this word kind treatment as to one’s self ; but 
with us it has degenerated so far into a haughty or per- 
functory almsgiving, a tyrannous red-tape-giving, that 
many poor people hate the word charity more than the 
fact of starvation. During my Theological course I 
worked in city missions and I was much impressed with 
the goodness of the poor to the poor, the giving, the loan- 
ing, the active helping : some one says the noble amount 
“of this true charity of the poor to the poor will never 
be known until the judgment day,” and I believe it. 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. 


137 


Hundreds of rich people are willing to share what they 
have with the suffering, but the needy are so far away 
from them that they do not know how to approach them. 
They are simply living in another world. To comfort the 
poor, help them to a better financial, social, and often 
religious standing, it is necessary first of all to be friends 
with them, live among them, have the privilege of know- 
ing and sharing their home life.” 

“Yes,” said Persis merrily, “it is time we clamored 
for Home Rule in the cities, and we should keep up the 
clamor until we get it. It is the Home among the homes, 
the model home, that we need. I don’t think we should 
ask .or expect people who have young children to bring 
them to live in these quarters. If God has given them 
means to keep their children in better localities they 
should occupy their opportunities. But there are plenty 
of people who have no children — women like my cousins, 
Harriet, and myself — who can establish homes as norms 
of social life in places like Gardner Street, and worse 
places. It is the Christian’s work. The Church of Christ 
is the strongest organization in the world, and it should 
be able to cope with this social darkness and destroy it. 
It will be done too, sooner or later. The world wakes 
up. Ten of my friends, this summer, took an outing to- 
gether, each taking in charge a poor child. They began 
it as a summer frolic, it is ending in a noble consecration 
of themselves. They have hired a house on Ramsay 
Street, calling it Alma House ; are going to renovate it, 
and by two at a time live in it. As being permanently 
resident, they will show what can be done in that neigh- 


38 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


borhood. They are going to be friends, helpers, teach- 
ers — teachers by living. ” 

* ‘ Some of our Personal Interest ladies are becoming 
so absorbed in the work,’' said Mrs. Trenton, “that they 
are planning to open a temperance eating-house, and to 
form a Working Girls’ Club — which will have a house of 
twenty rooms where working girls can get their board, 
washing and lodging for three dollars a week, under their 
own rules.” 

“That will be a help to those who are above the 
dead line of three dollars or three and a half a week 
wages,” said Persis. “Now, as we are through supper, I 
want you to come and see the chief beauty of our place 
here. I have reserved it to the last. It is my Cousin 
Susan’s flower-making room. I always had a sneaking 
fondness for artificial flowers, they imitate nature so 
closely. There, now ! Is not this like a summer land, a 
tropic garden ? Do you wonder that I hear her girls 
humming like bees, or singing like birds .? See how the 
pattern sheets light up the walls, and look at these boxes 
of finished work. This is Cousin Susan’s box ; she is a 
first-rate artist, and some of these are coming up to her 
standard. We hope our poor little deformed Trinka will 
be ‘ passed mistress ’ in the art of flower-making, and so 
always provided with a comfortable living. Poor Mrs. 
Gayley tells me that when Trinka was a baby she always 
prayed God to take her out of the world, she seemed so 
hopeless of any safety or comfort if she lived, so doomed 
to misery ; but now she is so thankful that God did not 
take her at her word, for Trinka is likely to be helpful to 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. 


139 


Others and comfortable herself. I suppose it is easier to 
reach Serena Bowles’ standard for ourselves than for our 
children : that we all have not to enjoy but to glorify.” 

Cousin Susan, looking very happy, was showing her 
patterns, materials, and finished work. 

“How neat the room is — like a well-kept garden ! ” 
cried Mrs. Trenton. 

“If we were the least bit untidy it would ruin the 
work,” said Cousin Susan. 

With Persis’ work in the Gardner Street house and 
vicinity, the Alma Club, a true “home of religion,” as 
one of the girls called it, in Ramsay Street, and Tom 
Trenton and his wife in Dorsey Street, the forces of mis- 
ery and sin were being effectually beleaguered. Persis 
had found it true, as Dr. Bond told her, that where one 
worker was called to the field others were called also, 
and as these helpers one of another concentrated their 
efforts the work began to tell. Persis, in her rounds, 
found the homes cleaner and quieter, better methods in 
use, children better cared for, a brighter and more hope- 
ful spirit abroad. There was much less drinking, and a 
very marked diminution in the quarrelling. The night 
school filled up ; a new refinement and dignity marked, 
the young women of the neighborhood. They were 
secretly patterning after Persis, Miss Hughes, and the 
young ladies of Alma House. 

Mr. Trenton began to report increased attendance on 
the meetings in his mission, the Sunday-school filled up, 
and more teachers were called for. They came. Moved 
by some divine influence, the men and women of the up- 


140 A NEW SAMARITAN. 

town churches who had taken to heart the Personal 
Interest Society work came to throw themselves heart- 
ily, in the self-forgetful, right way, into this new work in 
Dorsey Street. All at once the congregation outgrew 
the lately half-filled chapel room, and the sliding doors 
to the Sunday-school room were thrown open ; and 
within a week that whole space was filled, and there was 
not standing room. There had been no noise, no bids 
for popular effect — merely the earnest preaching of the 
gospel, the singing of Mrs. Trenton and her helpers, and 
the warm spirit of Christian love. For the hour Tom 
Trenton felt overwhelmed and helpless under the sudden 
expansion of his work. Then his heart rose joyfully to 
the harvesting. But what should he do with the crowds, 
men, women and children, scores who had not attended 
a service or heard hymn or prayer for years, who wei;e 
now coming nightly to preaching.? The Dorsey Street 
chapel-room only sufficed for the noonday prayer-meet- 
ing. “Where is the room.?” he said to his friends of 
Persis’ family. 

“See here,” said Cousin Rebecca, briskly; “if you 
really need more room God will provide it. This is his 
work, not yours. ” 

And the room was provided in one of the wonderful 
ways. Years before there had been a large church near 
Dorsey Street, but the congregation had moved up town, 
and the church had followed them. The great 'church 
building had been sold for a theater, and there were 
hearts of those who had once been greatly blessed within 
those walls which were broken over these desolations of 


THE DEW AND THE SHOWERS. 141 

Zion, and were yet praying that light would shine forth 
at the once consecrated place. The theater had not 
prospered, and the premises had been sold to a wholesale 
liquor dealer. Outwardly the place had been little 
changed. The wide doors, the long windows, the low, 
square bell-tower, proclaimed the old-fashioned house of 
worship. Within there had been alterations, but the 
ground-floor was still one huge room, the ceiling sup- 
ported by arches and pillars, well lit, well ventilated, 
with fine acoustic properties, as was the fashion in old- 
time churches. No one asked the liquor dealer for the 
church ; it is doubtful if any one thought of it in connec- 
tion with this present need ; but one morning fifty men 
were set to work, the entire stock in trade was carried 
elsewhere, and a newsboy brought to Rev. Tom Trenton 
a note telling him that the place was at his service, and 
by sending word to a certain firm chairs and benches 
would be in place before night. 

As when Rhoda came to hearken the praying friends 
of Peter “believed not for joy,” so Tom Trenton and his 
helpers could not at first realize their good fortune. But 
as the vigorous knocking of Peter brought his friends to 
their senses, so a hasty rush to the old church, standing 
empty, swept and garnished, had a convincing effect. 

That was a busy day, and at night the great audience- 
room was lit and crowded, and for the first time in many 
years the voice of praise and prayer and the proclamation 
of the gospel sounded again in the building once conse- 
crated to the service of God. 

The Dorsey Street Mission had been from its incep- 


142 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


tion a union mission, and from various churches came 
the helpers, ministers and laymen, whoever felt his heart 
drawn to the work. It was as in those days in the wil- 
derness : “And they came, both men and women, as 
many as were willing hearted, and all the wise hearted, 
in whom the Lord had put wisdom and understanding 
to know how to work all manner of work for the service 
of the sanctuary.” Presently their friends and relatives 
came also, and as the news of the wonderful work 
spread Mr. Trenton’s father heard of it in the country 
and came also. Now, Mr. Trenton’s mother had been a 
godly woman all her life, but the father had always 
avowed himself an infidel. 


THE LIVING STREAM. 


143 


CHAPTER XI. 

THE LIVING STREAM. 

“ There is a living stream, my friends, 

That by the grace of God descends 
Into our sinful hearts. 

And when a soul is bathed therein, 

All care, all heaviness, and sin. 

All sorrow, thence departs.” 

The sudden and wide outpouring of religious interest 
in the whole ward where were Gardner, Ramsay, Dorsey 
and Webster Streets surprised no one so much as those 
workers who for over a year had been toiling and praying 
for this end ! 

“What presses upon me most,” said Persis, “is the 
realization of the unfaith that is beneath all our supposed 
faith ! Which of us expected this ?” 

“I can tell you,” said Miss Susan. “There are two 
who have asked for revival and expected this answer : 
Serena Bowles and Mrs. Mumsey are not one bit aston- 
ished ; they say they ‘ knew it was coming, because it is 
promised that where two agree to ask in Christ’s name it 
shall be done unto them ; and they agreed to ask for 
this some years ago, and have kept it up ever since. ” 

“The fact is,” said Miss Rebecca polishing her 
glasses, ‘ ‘ when we get a blessing we do n’t generally 
know whose prayers are being answ'ered — those of some 
long dead grandmother, maybe, or of some saint of 
God whom we have never seen. There ’s one thing I 


144 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


can tell you, though : no two people are enjoying this 
work of grace more than Serena and Mrs. Mumsey ; 
they are at the meetings every night, and their faces just 
shine. " 

As the workers who were busy in the mission were 
from various denominations their methods were many, 
but they all held forth one gospel of the grace of God, 
and their harmony was perfect. From the first the work 
was largely personal, friend praying for and bringing 
friend. One evening, just after the old church w*as given 
for the meetings, Serena, Mrs. Mumsey, and Katherine 
and Annie Clarke were walking home together, when 
Annie said, 

‘ ‘ I feel so anxious for widow Picot and her three 
girls, who live in our house. They are such nice, bright, 
kind, industrious bodies. When they came there they 
seemed to have absolutely no religious ideas ; they vis- 
ited, sewed, did their house-work on Sundays, didn’t 
own a Bible, and never went to church. Mrs. Picot and 
the eldest girl are just the same still, except that they do 
own a Bible, for Miss Thrale got a grant of Bibles from 
the Bible Society and put one in every room in the 
house where there was none. Marie, the youngest girl, 
is in Miss Susan’s work-room, and Lisbet, the middle one, 
is with Miss Rebecca, and the religious teaching that 
they have had has helped them somewhat. They do n’t 
work Sundays, and they come to the Bible readings. 
Oh, how I wish they were all converted !” 

“Let us make them a subject of prayer right off,” 
said Mrs. Mumsey. “I feel I ’m so old and weak I’m 


THE LIVING STREAM. 


145 


not like to stay in this world very long, and I want to do 
all I can while I ’m here. Let us begin as soon as we 
get to our homes, and pray with all our hearts for this 
whole Picot family.” 

“Yes: we will,” said Katherine. “I hope we can 
pray with faith.” 

“We all of us have miserable crippled faith,” said 
Serena. “I remember, however, that there was a man 
in the gospel who got a big blessing by beginning, 
*Lord, I believe; help thou my unbelief’ Now that 
comes home to me, and that is the way I always begin.” 

“Queen Esther said, ‘If I perish, I perish,’ and the 
lepers at the gate of Samaria said, ‘ If they save us alive, 
we shall live; if they kill us we can but die.’ Little 
faith has been very largely rewarded, ” said Katherine. 

The four parted at the door of the Gardner Street 
house, and the promise to pray for the Picot family was 
kept. Not long after followed one of the great wonders 
of God’s grace. Katherine and Annie were just drop- 
ping asleep one evening when some one knocked at their 
door, and they heard the voice of Mrs. Picot. Kathe- 
rine rose, opened the door, and stirred up the fire in the 
grate. 

“I knew you wouldn’t mind my coming,” said Mrs. 
Picot. “All this evening, as I sat working, I felt that 
God was calling to me to come to him. I began to 
feel as if to serve God was the best thing in the world. 
I felt it strange I could have turned my back on him so 
long. I want more than anything else to be saved ! 
Oh, I do wonder why I have not seen how wicked I 

10 


N«w Samaritan. 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


146 

was, and how much I need God ! And I do believe 
God will take me for his. I ’ve been reading that Bible 
for some weeks. I don’t know why I began, but I 
could n’t stop, and every word was for me ! Somehow I 
feel new to myself, and everything seems new to me. ” 

“ Praise God !” cried Katherine. “ How soon he has 
answered our prayers, Annie ; it is just as it is written, 

‘ Before they call I will answer, and while they are yet 
speaking I will hear !’ ” 

“ I believe God will save my girls,” said Mrs. Picot. 

‘ ‘ I want you to go with me and speak to them. They 
are never so hard-hearted as I am. Marie and Lisbet 
have been praying and going to the meetings, I am sure. 
Come with me to their room. Miss Clarke, and let us 
tell them what God has done for me, and pray for Laura, 
for she is hard-hearted, like me.” 

Katherine put on wrapper and slippers and went 
down with Mrs. Picot to the hall below, where her young- 
er daughters had a room next their mother’s. As they 
drew near they saw the door ajar, and a thin line of yel- 
low light falling into the hall. They pushed open the 
door. There stood Laura Picot in her wrapper, her two 
sisters sitting up in bed. As their mother pushed open 
the door Maria cried out, “Mother! Laura loves God. 
She believes in Christ I She has come to tell us of it I 
And we had just been praying for ourselves and for you ! 
Oh, mother, let us all go to heaven in company I Let us 
live to serve God.” 

Mrs. Picot stood weeping for joy, “I believe,” 
said Katherine, ‘ ‘ that here is a time for a prayer-meeting I 


THE LIVING STREAM. 


147 


I am going to tell Miss Thrale and Miss Hughes and the 
Misses North ! Come down, all of you, to the family par- 
lor, and bring Annie and Mrs. Gayley. I have to sing, 

‘ There is a fountain filled with blood ' and ‘ Grace ’t is a 
a charming sound.’ I must sing; I cannot be quiet, 

‘ The Lord hath done great things, whereof I am glad ! ’ ” 

“Last night,” said Miss Rebecca at breakfast, “was 
surely the most beautiful night of my life. I never felt so 
near God before. Persis, have you not a story for my 
girls this morning ? ” 

“Girls,” said Persis, standing in Miss North’s work- 
room, “ I have come to tell you the story of a shoemaker 
and a lady. The lady was the Baroness Sophia Krude- 
ner, a Prussian, rich, beautiful and highly educated. She 
had all that this world could give her : nobles and even 
kings were her friends : but she w^as miserable. She was 
unhappy in her marriage and found no comfort in any of 
the pleasures and splendors that surrounded her. Her 
heart was empty of faith, hope and love, and she was for- 
ever desolate and unsatisfied. One day she sent for a 
shoemaker to take her measure for a pair of boots. As 
the man knelt to measure her foot she thought she had 
never seen a face so calm, so deeply happy, such an ex- 
pression of heavenly peace. She asked him what was the 
reason of his joy and satisfaction, while he seemed to 
have almost nothing of good ; and she having all that the 
world could give was wretched. He told her that he was 
a Moravian, that the love of God dwelling in his soul 
made him happy and peaceful, and that from the word 
of God he daily learned more and more of the fullness of 


148 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


God’s grace. Those few simple words were blessed to 
Madame Krudener. She became a woman of deep, en- 
thusiastic piety, devoted to the service of God and of 
humanity. She united with the Moravian Church, and 
spent all the remainder of her life in helping the needy and 
speaking of the richness of that gospel which had sup- 
plied all her need. Your text for to-day is, ‘Ye are com- 
plete in Him. ’ This story I think illustrates that ; and 
you know it is open to us all, by a godly, happy living, 
to commend the grace of God as the poor shoemaker did, 
and to find that grace all sufficient for us as Madame 
Krudener did. ” 

News of the conversion of the whole Picot family 
spread in the neighborhood, and served to deepen the 
interest already felt. Persis in her nursing rounds noticed 
the change of tone among the people. The women 
talked of the meetings, of religious and moral things, in- 
stead of the faults of their neighbors. From the repeated 
singing of certain hymns in the meetings they were 
learned and sounded along the streets, or from beside the 
cradles and over the washing tubs. The men and women 
now planned to help each other to opportunities to attend 
the services. Among the converts were Mrs. Hook and 
her two older children, Mrs. Tull and Jonathan, and many 
more. The father of Mr. Trenton still regularly attended 
the meetings, but whether interest in the gospel preached, 
or simply fatherly pride in the young preacher, brought 
him, none could tell. 

One evening the platform at the church was occupied 
by several different ministers, among others a Methodist 


THE LIVING STREAM. 149 

from a suburban church. He had been there a number 
of evenings and worked with fervor increased by a great 
burden on his own heart, for his eldest son, a lad of sev- 
enteen, was giving him much trouble. A big, hearty 
red-faced man, towering above all the others, as Saul 
above his people by head and shoulders, sympathetic, easily 
moved as a child, his mighty voice sounded in exhorta- 
tion or in fervent prayer, or caught up and rolled along 
the words of some hymn. Mr. Trenton had been preach- 
ing earnestly and forcibly, and after he closed, this Meth- 
odist brother, all on fire with ardor, rose and said: ‘‘I 
know many of you are almost persuaded to be Christians, 
many more are saying in your hearts ‘ I have found him 
of whom Moses and the prophets did write.’ Let us see 
you face to face : let us take your hands ; let us hear what 
God has done for your souls. Come down here to the 
front and let us magnify the Lord together.” 

There was a sudden rising, and thirty or forty persons 
came down the aisles and stood about the little group of 
ministers. Then there was a pause. The tall parson 
leaned forward from the end of the platform where he 
stood. God’s harvest is not all gathered,” he said. 

‘ ‘ In the name of Christ I entreat you, ‘ Choose ye this 
day whom ye will serve.’ ” 

Then, in the midst of a great silence, footsteps were 
heard. Down one aisle came a tall, gray-haired, broad- 
shouldered man, down the other a slim, erect lad. The 
face of the big minister crimsoned and worked convul- 
sively. He held forth his hands. Tom Trenton looked 
up the aisle at the head of which he was seated, then 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


150 

rose trembling, watching intently. There were two 
smothered cries. One said, “My father!’’ the other 
said, “My son !” Then the old man and the lad stood 
in the forefront of that little company of converts. 

“Let us pray,” cried one of the ministers on the 
platform. Mr. Trenton, standing by the desk, bowed 
his face on the Bible, his joy for his father overwhelming 
him. The big Methodist threw his arm over Mr. Tren- 
ton’s shoulders, bent his head on his, and sobs shook his 
burly frame as the words of the brother minister’s prayer 
voiced his thanksgivings for a rescued son. 

Those were busy and happy days in that neighbor- 
hood. It seemed to Persis that the work was crowned 
when just begun, and that the harvest had come when 
but the few first handfuls of seed had been scat- 
tered. 

As Suke Ryan was by all odds the noisiest and most 
openly ungodly liver in the district, many of her ac- 
quaintances were much exercised about her. In their 
work for her they, in their ignorance and zeal, often, no 
doubt, outran discretion. Earnest and untrained, begin- 
ners in the right way, the women had much to learn, and 
the management of Suke was no easy task. 

“It is just diabolical how Suke does behave,” said 
one woman to another. “She shut the door slam in 
Mr. Trenton’s face, and when that nice big Methodist 
man did but ask her in the street would she come to the 
meetings, says Suke, ‘ I ’ll souse this mug of beer in your 
face if you speak to me. ’ ” 

‘ ‘ She do n’t chase Miss Thrale off, ” said one. 


THE LIVING STREAM. 151 

“No. But, mind you, there's a queer thing about 
Miss Thrale : she don’t talk religion to Suke.” 

“Well, she ought to. Suke needs it bad. Miss 
Thrale ’s young.” 

‘ ‘ See here, neighbors, let ’s go, the whole ten of us, 
to Suke’s room and talk with her and pray for her. One 
of the preachers said t’ other night people were n’t Chris- 
tians unless they talked with sinners and prayed for ’em. ” 

“Oh, I don’t think he said quite that,” cried Mrs. 
Tull. 

“Well, it was mighty nigh to it, and I don’t feel we 
do our duty unless we go to plead with Suke.” 

This notion of bearding the redoubtable Suke in her 
den had in it a venturesomeness which captivated these 
women, whose hard and narrow lives had given them a 
craving for excitements of some kind, whether of a street 
quarrel, a fire or an experience-meeting. At once they 
adjourned in a body to Suke’s room. 

“What now, neighbors.?” cried Suke, instantly suspi- 
cious. “What is wanted that so many of you come at 
once ?” 

“We’re here to do you good, Suke.” “We feel anx- 
ious about your soul. ” “We can ’t give you up, woman. ” 
“You are getting old, and haven’t any hope.” “We 
want you to be a Christian.” “We’ve come to hold a 
meeting with-you. ” Thus the chorus of the women. 

Suke sprang to her feet and glared at them like some 
beast at bay. The earnest kindliness in the faces turned 
to hers, the eagerness, the tearful eyes and trembling 
lips of these simple women, so far disarmed her that she 


152 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


refrained from taking a chair, a poker or a broom-stick 
to clear her room, as was her pleasing custom. She 
began to argue. “Now, neighbors, I don’t bother you 
— you can be pious or not, for all me — and you have no 
right to come forcing religion on me. When I need it 
I ’ll go for it, and when I want you here talking prayer- 
meeting I’ll send for you. I wish you ’d go home, every 
one of you, and let me alone.” 

“Oh, Suke, you don’t know what is for your good.” 
“We have an errand to you from God.” “Woman, if 
you were sick you ’d be glad enough to have us come to 
help you, and it is your soul that ’s sick to death. ” 
“We’ve got so much betterment ourselves, Suke, we 
want you to share it.” “Yes, that’s true for us. I’m a 
happier woman by half; I’ve got something to hope 
for.” “It helps us all along, neighbor. We do our 
work better, we keep house better, we rear our children 
better, we live pleasanter together.” So the chorus of 
women’s voices continued bearing their simple testi- 
mony. 

“I don’t deny it,” said Suke, her arms akimbo, 
standing defiant. “You may get all the good you like 
out of it, but I wont have it. What are you going to do 
about it ?” 

“We’ll go down on our knees and pray for you, every 
last one of us,” cried Mrs. Tull. 

“I wont stand it! I’ll open the winder and call 
the police.” 

“ He isn’t round. Folks are so quiet nowadays that 
he don’t come round often. ” ‘ ‘ Besides, if we are put 


THE LIVING STREAM. 


153 


out of your room, the hall is free, and we '11 kneel down 
and pray through the door, so you can’t fail to hear us. ” 

‘ ‘ Have I got to hear all you ten sighing and praying 
for me ? I ’d rather pray for myself and done with it !” 
cried Suke. 

‘‘Well, do it, Suke; that’s all we ask.” “If you’ll 
pray for yourself we wont worry you with our prayers.” 
“All we want is you to be prayed for.” “Oh, woman, 
if you ask you may get a blessing. ” 

“I don’t want any blessing but to be rid of you,” 
said Suke; “and if saying a word of prayer will take you 
off, now and forever. I’ll do it. How will I begin.? 
What shall I say, seeing you know so much about it ?” 

It now dawned upon Mrs. Tull that they were pursu- 
ing methods very different from those of the older Chris- 
tians about them — Mrs. Mumsey, Mrs. Bowles, and the 
ladies of Miss Thrale’s household. She began to wish 
that they had taken wiser counsel before they intruded 
upon Suke, and she was anxious to end the affair as soon 
as possible. 

“It is simple enough, dear woman,” she said per- 
suasively. “We never came here to anger you, but 
aiming at your good. We ’ll all kneel down here, and 
do you kneel down, and just ask the Lord to convert 
your soul. Come, now. ” 

Down went all the women on their knees about Suke, 
and there was profound silence. 

“Begin ; you said you would, Suke,” whispered one. 
Longer silence. “We will have to begin ourselves, then. 
You lead on, Mrs. Tull.” 


154 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Stop; I’m just ready,” cried Suke, terrified at the 
prospect of ten prayers of uncertain length. “What do 
you say?” 

“Just ask for a converted soul, plain, like you’d ask 
for a loaf of bread, dear heart. ” 

“O Lord,” began Suke in desperation, “these women 
wont let me off unless I ask for to be converted ; so here 
it is. Will you convert Suke Ryan? Not that I care 
anything about it, and to say it is just as foolish as to 
pray for rain with the wind set strong from the west.” 
Profound, alarmed, horrified silence ensued. “Is that 
enough? Will you go?” cried Suke, opening her eyes. 

“You haven’t said amen,” suggested one poor little 
woman, as a way out of the difficulty. 

“Amen!” cried Suke. “Now go, and don’t you 
bother me again. You said you wouldn’t.” 

The women slowly rose. Mrs. Moss remembered 
that she had read, “ Ephraim is joined to his idols; let 
him alone;” it came into Mrs. Tull’s mind that there 
was a text about casting pearls before swine. As they 
trooped slowly out of the room they felt that they had 
failed, perhaps erred. Mrs. Hook, however, comforted 
them — that, if they had been less than wise, they meant 
well, and the Lord looks on the heart, and that God ac- 
cepts according to that a man hath, and not according 
to that he hath not. 

“If so be, neighbors, we haven’t got much sense, the 
Lord don’t expect us to show much. He remembers 
we are dust. ” 

“But it is an awful pity, and she with a child to rear.” 


THE LIVING STREAM. 


155 


Yes; there, after all, was the greatest pity of it. 
A niece of Suite’s had died and left a three-year-old boy, 
Dorry Hill ; and Suite, who rather liked children, had in 
a gush of sympathy assumed the care of him. He was 
running wild, and bade fair to be the worst child in the 
ward, although he was a bright and pretty little fellow. 
This child’s case greatly exercised not only the neighbors 
but Persis Thrale. As Suke was particularly friendly to 
her she had tried to do something for the child. 
“Could he not go to Mr. Trenton’s Sunday-school?” 

“I don’t believe in Sunday-schools,” said Suke. 

“Send him regularly to kindergarten then, wont 
you ?” 

“He don’t want to go, and it would be too much 
fuss to make him.” 

“I’ll persuade him or hire him to come.” 

“Well, no; axing your pardon, there’s too much 
piety over there.” 

‘ ‘ Surely you do not wish him to grow up to be a bad 
man. Sin brings suffering. Think of that. The law 
deals hardly with the criminal. Think what he may 
come to.” 

“That’s his lookout,” said Suke coolly. “And he 
IS a bad un ; he takes to it like a duck to water. He 
swears terribly. I can ’t make him quit it. Of course, 
he ought not to do it ; he is too little ; but he wont stop 
for me. You ’d be surprised to hear him. Swear for the 
lady, Dorry; that’s a man.” Whereupon the redoubt- 
able Dorry swore “like our army in Flanders.” 

Persis turned away heart-sick. She applied to Mr. 


56 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Inskip. “Cannot he be taken from such custody? 
Here is another criminal being trained to burden the 
State and add to the corruption of society.” 

“You cannot do anything about it unless you can 
show that the child is underfed, abused personally, left 
unclad, or in some physical way harmed. The law takes 
cognizance not of moral but of physical injuries.” 

‘ ‘ Doctor Barnardo bought some of his Rescues as low 
as a shilling each, ” said Persis with a bitter smile ; ‘ ‘ but 
I cannot buy Dorry. I Ve tried ; and it breaks my heart 
to see a poor little child deliberately trained for misery 
and ruin.” 

‘ ‘ Have you offered to adopt him ?” asked Mr. Inskip. 

“Yes; and Suke refuses. She sees that she makes 
many of us miserable by her methods with the poor little 
boy, and it gives her a malicious delight.” 

It was the astute Mrs. Tull who contrived the rescue 
of little Dorry. 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 


57 


CHAPTER XII. 

REAPING AND GLEANING. 

“ And like an army in the snow 

My days went by, a treacherous train, 

Each silent when he struck the blow. 

Until I lay among the slain.” 

Perhaps no one in the neighborhood felt so really dis- 
tressed in behalf of Dorry Hill as did Mrs. Tull. Her 
own child had developed her maternal instincts, broad- 
ening them toward all children, and her conversion had 
helped her to take a spiritual measure of things. Dorry 
lay heavy on her heart night and day. She could do 
nothing for him, because Suke systematically kept him 
away from those women whom she termed “the pious 
ones." Mrs. Tull was a bright little woman, and had 
been much mortified at the fiasco of the hastily planned 
prayer-meeting in Suke's room. She now laid with great 
care her plans in Dorry's behalf. The fact that Suke took 
a heavy cold, and coughed terribly, came very fortunately 
for Mrs. Tull’s designs. She concocted various syrups 
and ointments and took them, two or three times a day, 
to Suke, being careful to deliver them and go away at 
once. After a few days she stopped a little to discuss the 
effects of the remedies. Then she offered to do some 
washing for Suke, and to mop her floor, and Jonathan 
did an errand or two to save Suke from going out in bad 
weather. Next, Mrs, Tull appeared with bowls of soup 


158 


THE NEW SAMARITAN. 


or gruel ‘ ‘ to build Suke up ; ” then she brought her work 
and her baby and stayed to sew and chat : she also asked 
Suke to sit in her room in the bright sunshine in the 
mornings. Soon she began to turn the conversation 
toward Tommy Tibbets. She did not discourse at length 
upon Tommy, but she “brought him in” to her con- 
versation freely ; Tommy’s health, looks, dress, manners, 
smartness. If Suke gave an anecdote about her Dorry 
Mrs. Tull topped it with one about Tommy. “Tommy 
Tibbets ! I know him ; saw him a thousand times round 
with the Hooks. He’s not so wonderful,” said Suke. 

“Oh you ought to see him now ! He’s been brought 
out, I tell you ! Why, ladies and gentlemen stop him in 
the streets ! And then the expectations he has, the op- 
portunities ! My ! ” 

“ What opportunities, along with old Mrs. Mumsey ? ” 
said Suke. 

“ Along with Miss Thrale, don’t you mean? She’s 
young, she’s rich, and look at her friends ! Why, Tommy 
wont want a thing that he can’t get. ” Then Mrs. Tull 
would briefly sketch Tommy’s prospective progress. 
“He’ll go to school long as he wants to. To college 
with the big bugs if he likes. He’ll be taught a trade, 
or put into a store, or maybe turn out a lawyer ! Who 
can tell ? Miss Thrale could by her influential friends 
make anything she chose of him ! ” 

“What would it all amount to?” Suke wanted to 
know. 

“What ? Dear me ! ” cried Mrs. Tull, “wouldn’t it be 
worth while to be an alderman, or a judge, or chief of 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 


159 


police, or maybe iriayor, or perhaps governor ? I tell you, 
Mrs. Ryan, when I think Tommy may sit as judge, to 
send some of these kids round here to the penitentiary, 
or be the governor asked to pardon some of them, like 
your Dorry, from hanging, it looks queer to me ; don’t it 
to you?” 

Suke opined that people went through this world differ- 
ent ways, and when they were dead it made no difference. 

^ ‘ It would to me, ” said Mrs. Tull. “ If I thought my 
boy was to grow up to be some great shakes, and be writ 
all about it in a book, and my name put into the book 
too, ’long of being his mother, do n’t you guess I’d like 
it pretty well ? If Tommy goes to the top of the heap 
it will be a grand thing for his mother. Who ever heard 
of Mary Tibbets, a poor woman making horse clothes ? 
But now when Tommy is a great man, and has his life 
set down in books, there Mary Tibbets’ name will go in, 
and she will have a big stone monument up in the ceme- 
tery. Dear knows, folks prospers when their children do 
well ! ” 

'‘I don’t know as Tommy’s bound to do so well,” 
said Suke. 

“Can’t help it,” said Mrs. Tull decisively. “Any 
one can climb that ’s well boosted. ” 

“I’ll bet you a loaf to a biscuit,” said Suke, “that 
my Dorry can go as high as Tommy.” 

“ ’T ai n’t in reason, ” persisted Mrs. Tull. ‘ ‘ He ’ll run 
around the street, and not learn anything but bad, and 
before he is ten he ’ll be getting arrested, and a bad name 
fast to him. No work, no friends, cold and hungry in 


l6o THE NEW SAMARITAN. 

winter, and idle and dirty in the summer ; and finally the 
prison. You ’ve seen the poor creeters, Suke, and so have 
1. Isn’t it a terrible pity they get born ! ” 

Tears to me you’re going out of your way ’bout 
Dorry. ” 

“Look at the difference already, Suke, and see if I 
am. Tommy is clean and dressed well, and as bright 
as a button. Folks all notice him. And so smart and 
manly. ” 

“Dorry’s smart. You ought to hear him; he can 
swear and lie just like a man.” 

“Those isn’t the accomplishments likely to make 
him friends or fortune. It’s just imitating the bad he 
hears, poor lamb, as a parrot would. But Tommy knows 
things worth knowing ; and has good ideas of his own. ” 

“Let me tell you, Dorry could be just as well off this 
very day if I’d say the word, ” cried Suke. 

“Sho,” said Mrs. Tull in an incredulous tone. 

“Miss Thrale would adopt him, if I’d give him up.” 

“ Sho !” still more unbelievingly. 

“ She would, sure. She asked me for him.” 

“Easy enough to ask — to pass a compliment — when 
she was sure you would n’t do it.” 

‘ ‘ She ’d take him this minute. ” 

“Sho! Sho! Sho!” 

The conversation had been repeated several times to 
about this point, when one day that incredulous “Sho !” 
aggravated Suke into asserting, 

“I could prove it to you by trotting him over to 
Miss Thrale this minute ; and you come along. ” 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 


I6l 


I dare you to do it,” said Mrs. Tull. 

“ I wont take a dare. I ’ll do it. Come on, now !” 

Mrs. Tull had unfolded the progress of her plan to 
Persis, and when Suke, having fished Dorry out of the 
slush of the gutter, dragged him to the Gardner Street 
house Miss Thrale was not unprepared. 

“Did n’t you say you ’d take Dorry, Miss Thrale ?” 

* ‘ No trouble to say that when I ’m sure not to get 
him.” 

“Would n’t you take him, and rear him up as well as 
Tommy Tibbetts ?” 

“I might be willing to rear up the King of Spain, 
but he is not likely to fall into my hands. Talking is 
easier than doing. ” 

“Well, will you take him?” 

“ Try me and see.” 

“Ain’t I trying you ? Do n’t I ask you ? Here he is !” 

“Sho ! Sho ! Sho !” piped Mrs. Tull with a giggle. 

“I will not tell you what I would do, Suke, unless you 
sign a paper to give him up, to show yourself in earnest. 
After that I ’ll speak. I do n’t care to be fooled with. ” 

“ Write your paper out !” shouted Suke, goaded by a 
laugh from Mrs. Tull. 

Persis wrote out : “I hereby give my grand-nephew, 
Dorry Hill, to Miss Persis Thrale, to remain in her keep- 
ing until he shall be twenty-one years of age. Miss 
Thrale undertakes to provide for his wants, educate him, 
and furnish him with a home, in consideration of which 
I agree to make no interference with him, nor assert any 
rights over him. ” 


New Samaritan. 


II 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


162 

Persis read this document. 

“I dare you to sign it,” tauntingly cried Mrs. Tull. 
“And if you do you wont hold to it !” 

“See if I don’t,” said Suke. “Tommy Tibbets 
ain’t to have it all his own way, I can tell him.” She 
signed the paper. 

“Now, Miss. There’s what I ’ll stick to till I die.” 

“ Certainly I ’ll take him, and be glad to get him, ” 
said Persis. “When I have him all fixed up, Suke, I ’ll 
let you see him. ” 

“Now, Bet Tull, let ’s hear some more of that ‘sho ! 
sho ! sho !’ ” 

“Did I ever !” sighed Mrs. Tull; “have you really 
done it .? Who ’d have thought you ’d have done so well 
by him ! I declare, Suke Ryan, you ’ve a power more 
brains than folk think you have ! Well, he ’ll live to 
thank you for it. ” 

“Next time you and I have some conversation I 
wont hear so much ‘sho ! sho !’ when I express an opin- 
ion.” 

Suke went off to congratulate herself in a pitcher of 
beer ; Persis delivered her trophy to Mrs. Gayley and the 
bath-room, while she herself went to a children’s clothing 
store. 

‘ ‘ Dorry has had such hard fortune, he must be made 
now as different as can be,” said Persis ; so she was care- 
ful to buy good clothes for the little man. “I mean 
he shall not know himself,” she said to Harriet. “ I want 
him to stand in awe of his own grandeur.” 

“I tell you. Miss Thrale,” said Mrs. Moss, “you’ll 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 1 63 

have to knock that little scamp nearly to pieces, to make 
him quit swearing and lying. ” 

“That is not my style of management,'’ said Persis ; 
“and if I tried such fashions the child would not im- 
prove. He imitates what he has heard, just like a parrot. 
At his age he will forget profanity if he hears no more of 
it. He does not know what his words mean. He has 
heard them and repeats them. There is less moral 
wrong in it, as far as he is concerned, for he has no 
knowledge, or reproof of conscience. He takes his ly- 
ing, too, as a matter of course. He does not choose 
the evil and refuse the good ; he simply does n't know 
any good. I '11 help him to forget these objection- 
able things, and fill his mind and mouth with nice 
things. " 

When Persis Thrale led into Suke's room a very 
pretty little boy, shiningly clean, his short crop of black 
curls gleaming from scouring and scrubbing, a Scotch 
cap on his head, a cunning little kilt suit and shirt-waist 
setting off his stout little person, his big black eyes sedu- 
lously fixed on the magnificence of a pair of legs in black 
hose and button shoes, Suke with a cry of triumph seized 
that boy, carried him to Mrs. Tull, and setting him up 
like an image, shouted, 

“Who looks better than Tommy Tibbets ? Say ‘ sho !’ 
now !” 

A few days after this Suke disappeared from that 
neighborhood. Whether she missed the child and wanted 
to go where she could more easily forget him, or whether 
the more orderly character of her neighbors since the 


164 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


revival was wearisome to her, none knew. For some 
time Persis could not hear of her whereabouts. 

Persis Thrale found that the care of Dorry was no 
sinecure. In the first place Cousin Rebecca greatly ob- 
jected to him. She was a woman of autocratic temper, 
and secretly felt as if the management of affairs in Gard- 
ner Street centred in herself. “There are refuges and 
orphanages,” she said, “and children like Dorry should 
be put in them instead of invading people’s quiet with 
them ; ’most any place would be better than Dorry’s de- 
serts. ” 

There Persis took direct issue with her : Dorry had 
not invited himself to this world ; he had not had the 
privilege of choosing his parents, his antecedents, his cir- 
cumstances. Upon the helpless receptive child had 
been rained all manner of evil influences and unspeak- 
able wrongs. Reparation was now in order. The usual 
rights and privileges of childhood must now be his, plus 
intense care and most vigorous guardianship, to atone to 
Dorry for his misfortunes and undo the evil that had 
been done to him. As to orphanages and refuges, they 
were provided for lack of what was better ; but the di- 
vine idea for the child had been the home, and a home 
every child ought to have. 

“Rebecca never did like children,” sighed Susan. 

‘ ‘ She takes a most unchristian position, I think, ” said 
Persis. “She has a right individually to arrange her 
affairs as she pleases, but she has no right to interfere 
with other people or hinder their conscientious action. 

I shall not allow her time nor her room to be trespassed 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 1 65 

upon, but I shall hold my house and my means open to 
any call the Lord may make upon me.” 

Finding that she could not dictate to Persis, Cousin 
Rebecca looked gloomy and offended for several 
weeks, and then returned to her normal condition. 
Dorry she ignored. She privately told Miss Susan that 
she believed they would be more happy by themselves, 
where they could choose their own company and have 
no kindergarten and no children about. 

Miss Susan responded that if they lived otherwise 
they would by no means be able to carry on their flower 
and dressmaking work so extensively as now: With 
shelter and board to provide, their little income would 
be used up. For herself. Miss Susan had never in her 
life been so happy as since she came to Persis. 

Dorry came into Persis’ hands in November. All the 
family except Miss North aided in his moral regeneration. 
He slept in the room with Mrs. Massey; he went to 
Harriet’s kindergarten ; Mrs. Gayley scrubbed him daily 
and ‘ ‘ gave an eye to him. ” Every one spoke kindly and 
correctly to him and before him, and perfect honesty 
was constantly inculcated by example and helpfulness. 
When evil words rushed over the baby lips, whoever 
heard him said, “Oh, we do not talk that way,” and set 
him out in the hall or in a room by himself. They were 
at considerable pains to keep him off the streets and 
from his old playmates until he should forget former evil 
fashions. He went on errands with Trinka; to market 
with Mrs. Massey, had fine visits to Tommy Tibbets, 
and day by day the evil accretions of his unfortunate lit- 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


1 66 

tie life fell away, and he was growing into the proper 
image of the child. 

The holiday season brought many things new and 
beautiful to the Gardner Street neighborhood. Mr. 
Trenton’s Sabbath-school had a tree, and Mrs. Sayce's 
Bible class had an afternoon tea ; the sewing-class had a 
sleigh-ride far out around the suburbs, with hot chocolate 
and biscuits on the return ; the night-school had a lecture 
on foreign lands, with stereopticon views. On Christmas 
eve the big church was open for a dense crowd, and there 
was plenty of music and then a magic-lantern display, 
where nearly life-size pictures were thrown on the screen 
— pictures representing the histories of Joseph, Moses, 
David and Daniel ; and these histories Mr. Trenton 
clearly and brightly detailed to the accompaniment of 
the pictures. • 

Persis invited forty of her neighbors for Christmas 
night to a social. They had music and magic lantern 
and refreshments, and on each plate was a little gift. 
The gifts were very simple — a paper of pins, a box of 
hairpins, a little box with needles and thread, a pair of 
scissors, a thimble, a little colored tumbler; trifles all, 
yet all a cause of joy, as kindly given and souvenirs of a 
happy evening. 

The Alma Club House entertained forty more women 
in much the same manner ; Mr. Trenton gave a Christ- 
mas dinner to fifty men and boys who were not living in 
homes of their own ; every patient on Persis’ nursing roll 
received from Mrs. Inskip a dainty little dinner; the 
kindergarten had a Christmas tree and a feast. In fact. 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 167 

when all was over, no one had been left out, no one had 
been pauperized, all had been treated as friends and 
home folks. 

After Christmas affairs went on with increased smooth- 
ness and increasingly good results. Everything was in 
working order. Miss Rebecca had the happiness of 
placing fortunately some of her girls and taking on some 
new ones, among them two or three from Mrs. Sayce's 
sewing-class. Dorry improved amazingly. His evil 
habits were simply crow’ded out of him by sweet and 
innocent and childlike pleasures and ways. By degrees 
Miss Rebecca’s sour reserve thawed, and Persis, who had 
a sincere liking for her relative, was glad to find former 
pleasant relations resumed. 

At New Year’s Harriet organized a “Band of Hope 
and Anti-Cigarette League ” among the boys from six to 
fourteen years old, and the ever-useful kindergarten room 
was the place of meeting. 

“In this neighborhood,” said Harriet, “I think the 
men are ‘the neglected classes.’ Mr. Trenton does con- 
siderable for them, but we here and the Alma Club 
House ignore them completely. They do n’t seem to be 
in our line. The boys I intend to look after, and see if 
I can do something to make decent men of them. ” 

“ It s time,” said Miss Rebecca. “ I’ ve seen dozens 
of boys from six to fourteen years old going about smok- 
ing ; poor little pale puny, spindling, undersized crea- 
tures, and bound to grow up without brains or muscle 
enough to earn a living ! I do n’t see why the State 
doesn’t interfere and stop the spoiling of citizens ! To 


i68 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


think of the reformatories, penitentiaries, prisons, hos- 
pitals and insane asylums that are full and overflowing 
with men and boys spoiled by drinking and smoking. I 
believe the cigarettes do as much harm as rum to the 
young boys.” 

“Your opinions are sound, sure enough, my cousin,” 
said Persis smiling, “and, holding them, I should think 
you would be truly glad that I have rescued at least two 
boys. Tommy and Dorry, from growing into criminals.” 

“It remains to be seen what will become of those 
two. They are not grown up yet,” said Miss Rebecca. 

“I’m going to rely on the promise, ‘Train up a child 
in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not 
depart from it. ’ ” 

“ How many more do you mean to train ? ” 

“I’m sure I do n’t know. It ’s your turn to take one 
now. ” 

‘ ‘ My turn ! ” sniffed Miss Rebecca, throwing back 
her head. ‘ ‘ I hope I know myself better. ” 

Do we ever know ourselves as well as we think we 
do ? 

March came in with a cold storm and Miss Susan 
took cold. The one terror of the lives of the Misses 
North was lest they should be parted by death. The 
least sign of sickness in one threw the other into an agony 
of fear. Miss Susan’s cold was not very ominous, but 
Miss Rebecca was full of alarms and kept her sister in 
bed for the day, which was Sunday. About midnight. 
Miss Rebecca, finding that Miss Susan’s cough increased 
and her chest was painful, went softly to the kitchen to 


REAPING AND GI.EANING. 169 

prepare a syrup and a poultice. As she came back tip- 
toeing along the hall leading to the door where the kin- 
dergarten children came in, she heard, as she thought, a 
kitten crying in the storm. After she had applied her 
remedies and Miss Susan was comfortable Miss Rebec- 
ca’s thoughts reverted to the kitten. In spite of her ob- 
jection to having children about Miss Rebecca was very 
kind-hearted, and a suffering animal easily won her sym- 
pathy. “I heard a kitty crying by the street door,” she 
said. “Poor little thing, it will perish in the cold. I 
do believe I had better bring it in and wrap it up in my 
work-basket, and in the morning it can find its home.” 

“ Do,” said Miss Susan, “I shall lie awake thinking 
about it if it is left out there. ” 

Once more Miss Rebecca tiptoed through the hall and 
her sister heard the key and handle of the door turn. 
Then she came back more hastily. In her arms she had 
not a kitty but a bundle. “ Mercy upon us, sister Susan, 
it is a baby ! ” she cried. 

“The poor little mite ! It must be dying of cold ! ” 
Miss Rebecca turned up the gas and unfolded her 
bundle. “Not more than three weeks old — maybe only 
two. It seems clean, and its gown is clean, and so are 
the little quilt and shawl ; but they are old, mended and 
coarse. Would n’t it have been dreadful to find the lit- 
tle thing there, in the morning, dead ! ” 

“The Lord sent you to hear it, and to save it,” said 
Miss Susan. “Put it here in the bed between us, to 
warm up, or it will die from the exposure it has had. ” 
Miss Rebecca took from the child the small shawl 


170 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and quilt and a nice little infant in a flannel gown ap- 
peared. It moved its head uneasily to the light, and 
began wildly sucking its small red fist. Rebecca placed 
it in her sister’s arms. “It is hungry,” she said, “and 
as I would n’t let a cat starve no more I would a baby. 
I ’ll slip to the kitchen and get it some food. But I’m 
afraid I’ll get the wrong thing and kill it ! ” 

“I’ve heard Persis tell women to put some cream 
with warm water, and a tiny bit of sugar, and give it 
lukewarm.” 

“I can but do my best,” sighed Miss Rebecca. 
“Why did any one leave a child there ? ” Presently she 
brought the food, and taking the child on her lap by the 
fire, which she had revived in the grate, she sat down to 
feed it. 

“ It is so hungry, Susan ! Dear, how it eats ! It ’s 
eyes are open — big dark eyes. It is nice and plump. 
Well, I never thought that I could feed a baby and not 
spill a drop.” 

“You are doing beautifully,” said Miss Susan admir- 
ingly. 

The baby being fed was returned to Miss Susan, and 
was soon asleep, snug and warm between the two sisters, 
and never woke until morning. 

“What shall we do with it, sister Rebecca.?” asked 
Miss Susan. 

“I can’t do a thing until noon. I have the work- 
room to see to ; we have a nice big order to begin on. 
You can fix some milk for it when I bring you your 
breakfast, and I ’ll wash it before I go down. ” 


REAPING AND GLEANING. 


1 71 

The sleeping baby was unceremoniously picked up 
and washed, and Miss Rebecca improvised a fresh gown 
for it out of an old flannel petticoat. She made no re- 
mark about her “find” at breakfast. 

All the morning Miss Susan had the baby beside her, 
and she thought how nice it would be if she and Rebec- 
ca could only bring it up for their daughter, to brighten 
and attend upon their old age ! But then Miss Rebecca 
would never do that. Never ! About eleven o’clock 
Miss North left her work-room to do an errand. When 
she returned she had a bundle in her hands, and without 
a word, taking the baby from Susan, she dressed it 
from head to toe in neat baby-clothes. 

“You are making her look very pretty to send to 
the poorhouse, sister Rebecca,” said Miss Susan plain- 
tively. ‘ ‘ Send her quick, or I ’ll feel terribly bad to 
lose her. A baby is so sweet !” 

‘ ‘ Are you going down to dinner ?” said Miss Rebec- 
ca. “I ’ll make your bed while you are dressing.” 

Miss Rebecca made the bed, and laid the baby on 
it. “Now, Susan, what shall we call our little girl?” 
she said. 

“Oh, Rebecca ! Do you mean it ! Do you really !” 

“I can’t get that verse out of my head, ‘Take this 
child and nurse it for me, and I will give thee thy wages !’ 
Well it ’s a girl, and not a horrid boy ! There 's Persis. 
Persis ! Harriet !” she called, opening the door 1 “Come 
in here and see what I have to show you !” 


1/2 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

TO ALL ITS SEASON. 

“ That nothing walks with aimless feet.” 

It was a spring day, and the Rev. Mr. Trenton on his 
way home stopped and looked down a long narrow street. 
At the end of it he thought he saw a familiar form and the 
progress of events revealed this to be Persis, in her nurse’s 
dress, coming along beside a policeman. After a little 
she parted from her blue-coated escort and came within 
speaking distance of Mr. Trenton. 

“You seem to have been down into ‘Sodom and 
Gomorrah,’” said he, giving the local name for the ward 
out of which Persis had just emerged. 

“Yes; and I have been thinking that nothing but 
fire from heaven could ever clean up such a den. I do 
wonder how those dirty, reckless, tenements escape a 
conflagration ; half the inhabitants are drunk, and the 
rest do n’t seem to care. Drink, dirt, laziness, that is 
the triad that holds sway down there !” 

“What did you go down there for? I thought your 
time was fully occupied in your own district, which is 
more promising and less of a pest-house than that. ” 

“I went because I had at last heard where Suke 
Ryan was, and, do you know, I never can bear to let go 
of anybody whom I have tried to help. While there is 
life there is hope, and my instinct is to hold on — to the 
last breath.” 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 


173 


“ How about Suke, does she wish to be held to?” 

‘ ‘ No ; frankly, she does not. She was sorry I found 
her, and told me not to come again. I pointed out to 
her that she was in a far more wretched locality than 
when she lived near me, and has also less comforts of 
life. She calmly replied that she would rather be 
without any comforts of life at all than be 'where so 
much piety was going on. ’ She asserted that she wanted 
neighbors who were not above smoking, drinking and 
fighting with her when she felt like it. As I talked with 
her, all at once my imagination placed Mrs. Mumsey 
beside her : Mrs. Mumsey, clean, small, quiet, gentle, 
that deep saint-like peace brooding over her, her eyes 
‘homes of silent prayer.’ What made the difference? It 
is wider than the East from the West.” 

“The grace of God made it.” 

“And how can we answer for the hundreds of chil- 
dren who are brought up practically out of the reach of 
that grace, as far as men can effect it ? The streets down 
there in Sodom swarm with children, growing up — for 
what ?” 

Persis looked so pale and troubled that Mr. Trenton 
said, “Be careful. Miss Thrale, of taking up a burden 
never meant for your shoulders. God has set you your 
work and you are doing it. You can limit your useful- 
ness, your life, by breaking your heart over that which 
is beyond your helping. I know what it is to rise in the 
morning and lie down at night overwhelmed by a sense 
of the suffering and sin that are round about me, and 
reaching and widening on and on and out, like the rip- 


174 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


pies on the surface of a lake, until the whole compass of 
the world is reached. I had to learn to cast this burden 
also on the Lord, or I should have fallen beneath its 
weight. ” 

‘‘If we could annihilate the rum traffic, with its 
demoralizing and physically exhausting effects, secure 
thorough sanitation in the dwellings, and a compulsory 
education, with instruction in some occupation, for 
every child, I think we might get them where the light 
of the gospel could shine in. It would be like opening 
spaces for the sunshine to fall into a long-darkened 
wood or dwelling. ” 

“It is the arm of Christianity that must ply the axe 
then,” said Mr. Trenton. “The Church of Christ is 
the only organization powerful enough, and widely- 
spread enough, to undertake the work, or even to realize 
that it should be undertaken. Man, unregenerated, is 
not a sufficiently humane animal to work efficiently to 
eradicate evils which he can by any possibility keep out 
of sight.” 

“And when we of the church, and in the name of 
the church, get to work, we seem to be merely making 
sham attacks on this great fortress of evil. Picking a 
little on the ramparts, and a little here and there at the 
foundations, and the devil’s fortress remains as strong as 
ever. ” 

“ How can we prove that it will not crumble into 
ruin with some sudden rush ?” said Mr. Trenton cheerily. 

‘ ‘ Results are God’s. Let us sing in the Lord’s harvest 
field as we bind and glean ; that will be better than 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 


175 


lamenting. We have not worked a great while in this 
neighborhood and we have some noble results. We 
cannot measure the eternal results of the rescue of even 
a single one.'’ 

“I was talking to my policeman, who finding me 
yonder seemed to feel it to be his duty to walk with me 
to safer quarters. I asked him about the population, 
the death rate, the number of arrests, the chief sources of 
disorder, the number of ex-convicts, and the relative 
morals of the women and men. He said — ‘To sum it 
all up, ma'am, if you could but clear out the drink, the 
laziness, fighting, stealing and dirt and much of the dis- 
ease would be cleared out too."’ 

“It is true,” said Mr. Trenton. “We need both the 
law and the gospel in this work of social regeneration ; 
and it seems to be about equally difficult to secure 
either. '' 

“I am engaged to give a speech, or a talk, or some- 
thing of that kind, at one of our up-town clubs this 
evening,” said Persis, “and I'm resolved to talk on 
fragment gathering. ” 

“Human fragments, for instance?” 

“Yes, and other fragments. What may be called 
the rubbish-keeping habit is abroad in the land, and 
hindering much good. There are wardrobes, trunks and 
closets full of outgrown, half-worn, or a-Iittle-out-of- 
date comfortable clothes ; there are attics and rooms 
filled with condemned carpets, furniture of which people 
have grown weary, bedding that has been replaced by 
newer styles. Nothing should be hoarded. God does 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


176 

not hoard, he gives. The law of nature is a law of cir- 
culation and restoration. It is my theory that dozens of 
people down here in Sodom and Gomorrah, especially 
the women, might be lured and encouraged to do better, 
to make efforts for home life, if they had something to 
begin on ; something to be comfortable and look decent. 
For every two or three wards there should be a ‘ Frag- 
ment Depot,’ where such things as I suggest could be 
under charge, and loaned, given, or sold for a nominal 
price, under the direction of those at work among the 
needy. ” 

“The idea is good, "said Mr. Trenton as they reached 
his door. ‘ ‘ Meanwhile do n’t venture alone down in 
Sodom.” 

“Nothing will harm me there. Humanity at its 
lowest is not a wild beast, and even wild beasts feel 
gratitude. When you were a little boy did you never 
read about Androcles and the Lion .?*’ laughed Persis. 

“Yes; and when I was a college boy I also read 
about Una and her Lion. Still, don’t go down into 
Sodom often.” 

As Persis went homeward she saw a member of what 
Harriet called the “neglected classes,” a young man of 
about twenty, coming down the street with a hesitant, 
uncertain air. He met two or three other young men, 
and they turned to the screened door of a grog-shop. 
Persis knew that Amos Mason was not given to drink, 
yet it might be now or never with him in becoming a 
drunkard. She spoke out. 

“Amos Mason, I want you a moment; I have a 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 


177 


message for you.” His companions went behind the 
screened door, and Amos Mason approached Persis. 
“ My message to you, Mason,” said Persis, “is from all 
who desire your good. Do n’t go into a place where you 
may fall into a habit of drinking. What will your mo- 
ther do, if you, the only hope of her old age, should be 
a drunkard 

“ Oh, I hope not so bad as that. Miss Thrale ! The 
fact is, it is hard to find a place to go, or sit down, or 
have a bit of pleasure, when one is off work for a day.” 
“Are you idle to-day ?” 

“Yes, Miss; our engineer had an accident to the 
boiler, and we ’re off for a day while it is getting mended. 
I went round to our room, but mother is at the box fac- 
tory for the day, and she takes the key. ” 

“And so all your fellow-workmen have a day off, 
without knowing where to spend it ?” 

“That’s about the size of it. Miss, except one or 
two that don’t feel well and want to rest — and a few 
family men who have enough to do at home, or their 
kids to take but for a treat. ” 

“How would it be if you belonged to the Young 
Men’s Christian Association, and had the use of the gym- 
nasium and reading-room, and all that 

“We can ’t many of us pay the year’s fee. It is pretty 
big for fellows with low wages, rent to pay, and days off 
when they get no wages at all. And then most of us feel 
that our clothes are hardly fit to go there. 1 ’ve seen real 
ragged bummers in there, treated well, too ; but we reg- 
ular workmen ain’t of that lot either.” 


New Samaritan. 


2 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


178 

“I see. How about the city gymnasium and swim- 
ming-house down by the river ?” 

‘ ‘ Aye ; I ’ve been there, miss, and it is so crowded as 
you would n’t believe, hardly standing room sometimes, 
let alone a rope, or a trapeze, or a spring-board, or pair 
of dumb-bells to be had. They need one twice as big. ” 

“True. Would n’t it be nice if there was a fine large 
room in this neighborhood, with books, papers, maga- 
zines, a few nice games, and a musical instrument or 
two, and a membership fee as low as fifty cents, or per- 
haps twenty-five, a month — a place where you had rights, 
and that was respectable, yet where you could feel at 
home 

“ Indeed it would. Miss Thrale.” 

“Tea, coffee, chocolate, lemonade and sandwiches 
to be had at a low price.” 

“That would be real respectable and comfortable.” 

“If you know of three or four of your young men 
friends who would like something of that kind, and have 
ideas as to how it should be conducted, suppose you 
bring them to the Gardner Street house to-morrow even- 
ing at seven to talk the matter over and see what can be 
done. ” 

“Oh, thank you. Miss; we’ll be there.” 

“As for your mother's room key, Amos, Mrs. Moss 
has it. Do n’t you think it would be worth while for you 
to give the rest of the day to cleaning up — washing and 
mending windows, blacking the stove, buying a pot or 
so of geranium for the window sill, fixing it real nice for 
your mother, and having a good hot supper for her when 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 1 79 

she gets home ? She works hard, and she is getting old, 
Amos. ” 

She’s had a hard time of it always. Dad and my 
sister were sick so long. Thank you for speaking of it. 
Miss Thrale. It is not yet eleven; I can do wonders 
before six.” 

Off went Amos with a higher purpose than he had 
had an hour before, and Persis went on her way to see 
Mrs. Hook. The weather was good and the neighbor- 
hood was in a healthier condition than usual. Sanitary 
affairs had steadily improved since Persis came to live 
among these people. Example had done much, instruc- 
tion had done much, and the raising of the moral tone 
and self-respect had done more than all to improve the 
manner of living. 

Persis had not very many patients on her list that 
week. Mrs. Hook’s was the worst case, and her state 
weighed heavily on Persis, especially when she thought 
of the father off on a long voyage and the six children at 
home, and the boy who was out at service. The eldest 
girl — poor twelve-year-old — had come home to keep 
house and be nurse to her mother. With the instruc- 
tions of Persis, the aid of Mrs. Moss and Mrs. Tull, the 
two rooms and the family were kept thoroughly clean ; 
but Persis knew that poverty would soon press sharply, 
for the mother’s work had ceased for six weeks. She 
found Mrs. Hook looking very despondent. 

“Has the doctor been here?” asked Persis, referring 
to the city doctor from the dispensary. 

“Yes, Miss ; he came, and he left a line for you, and 


i8o 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


he says he is n’t sure what the matter is ; but he let fall 
it was something mighty bad. Oh, whatever will my 
poor children do left alone in this world — babies without 
a mother to guard ’em ! A poor sort I have been, Miss ; 
but I loved ’em and was kind to ’em, and since the Lord 
converted me I’ve tried my best bringing them up. 
And now what will they do ? My heart is broken !” 
She turned her thin pale face on the pillow and burst 
into bitter weeping, suddenly joined in by the eldest girl 
and whatever children were in the house. 

“Come, dear heart, don’t give up that way,” said 
Persis, laying her cool, soft, firm hand on Mrs. Hook’s 
forehead. “I have read this note, and your children are 
not going to lose you yet awhile unless you give way like 
this and mourn yourself into the grave. Hark, now. 
This very afternoon I will see the most famous surgeon 
in the city and have him here to-morrow to pronounce 
on your case. It will be one comfort to know what is 
wrong ; then we shall know how to remedy it.” 

‘ ‘ Oh, you ’re blessed good. Miss Persis. But what if 
he says it is what can ’t ever be cured ? And these high- 
flyers they do charge a power of money. ” 

“Never mind the money,” said Persis cheerily. 
“That w^as what God gave me plenty of it for, to do 
such errands for him. ” 

“You’re the best woman that ever lived in this 
world. Miss ; I ’ll stand by that. But I ’m hopeless 
about getting well. If so be I thought you ’d look a 
little after my children ” — 

“Of course I will — adopt the entire lot of them! 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 


l8l 


But come, now ; let me do your hair and bathe your 
face, and make you comfortable, and give you a lunch. 
You will live to bring up all the children, even the baby.” 

Her patient in order, Persis left strict directions 
that the women of the neighborhood should not be al- 
lowed to come in and gossip. Her orders, however, 
were as new ropes on Samson, for a crowd of neighbors 
coming in to condole and gossip, and cite instances, is 
the one luxury of being ill, to people of this order ; a lux- 
ury of which nothing will induce them to deprive them- 
selves. Persis had a continual contention against this 
inveterate habit of swarming into sick rooms to rehearse 
fearful tales of “just such cases,” every one of which 
ended in agony and death. While Persis went home, 
dined, dressed, went to her club, spoke on “Fragments,” 
and then drove to the famous physician and engaged 
him for a morning call on Mrs. Hook, Mrs. Hook was 
surrounded with her neighbor-women, who made sur- 
mises, told fearful tales, and gave the most dreadful 
prognostications. 

The next day Persis timed her visit to Mrs. Hook just 
as the great man was ready to leave. 

“She’ll have to go to the hospital for an operation ; 
it should be performed in five days. Until then she 
should be nursed and her strength brought up. These 
cases are not in my line. For my patients that can aiford 

it I send to Philadelphia for Doctor T ; he is the 

leading surgeon in the world for these affairs. The others 
I send to the hospital as private, or free. They will treat 
you well there, Mrs. Hook. Be brave over it. ” 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


182 

Mrs. Hook was ghastly pale. ‘‘Doctor, how many 
live through it ? ” she asked. 

‘ ‘ Oh — a good many. It depends. A very fair num- 
ber.” 

“I can’t go to the hospital,” sobbed Mrs. Hook. 

‘ ‘ But you must, or die. If you are not treated you 
will not live over a fortnight. That is your only chance.” 

‘ ‘ I can ’t go. I ’ll die any way, and if I die here I ’ll 
have my children about me to kiss them good-by. If I 
go to the hospital it is to die all alone. ” 

“Tut, tut ! You mean — to come back hearty in six 
weeks. ” 

“ Oh, I know what it is. They all die at the hospital. 

I have heard all about it. No, no, I cannot go there ; 
no.” 

The doctor was pulling on his gloves. “It is 
strange how stubborn these people are and what notions 
they have about the hospitals — the greatest, most humane 
institutions of modern times ! Well, Miss Thrale, I ’ve 
done all I can for her. You will have to do the best you 
can with her and get her to go to the hospital. It’s that 
or nothing. Oh, never mind that check. I ’ve heard of 
your work, let it go for comforts for this little family. ” 

He was gone ; the room was filled with the bitter 
sobbing of Mrs. Hook and her little daughter, who, cast 
upon the bed, with her arms over her mother’s feet, cried 
frantically, “Mammy, don’t die — don’t go. I can’t 
live without you. Oh, mammy, what are we going to do ! ” 

The strong hands of Persis lifted the girl up and put 
her into the hall-way. “Now stay there until you 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 1 83 

can act like a woman and help your mother, and not 
harm her. ” Then she returned to the bedside. 

“Oh, Miss,'’ said the sick woman, “don’t say I’m 
to go. Nearly all of them that go for this trouble to the 
hospital die ; and the nurses are that sharp ! — and you 
can ’t see your own family. Oh, let me die here, if so be 
it is God’s will.” 

“ It is perhaps his will that you recover, and he affords 
you the means. Scarcely any institutions do so much 
good as the hospitals ; skill, care, all the comforts of life, 
are there for nothing. Their work is Christ-like.” 

“Oh, Miss, you think so; but I ’ve heard. I can’t 
go ; oh, no. ” 

The sobs of the frantic woman shook the bed on 
which she lay, great beads of sweat stood on her white, 
miserable face. Persis, the strong, stood looking at her, 
a great wave of compassion rising over her heart and 
smothering even speech. Then suddenly came to her as 
never before the great joy of possessed wealth ; she felt 
as she never had felt the power of money, and oh how 
noble a thing seemed a fortune held in fee for God ! 
Science could perform a cure, but her money would en- 
able her to calm these fears and make a cure possible. 
She took Mrs. Hook’s hand and said firmly : '“ Hush 1 
You are not going to the hospital, and you are to get 
well. Now I know what to do for you. You shall have 

Doctor T from Philadelphia, just as do the richest 

people ; and you shall have every chance to get well, 
and you will get well. You ’ll be good and help me out, 
wont you ? You ’ll not let me throw the effort away ? ” 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


1S4 

'' Doctor T from Philadelphia,” gasped poor 

Mrs. Hook. 

‘^Listen, now. I have a friend, Mrs. Doctor Welsh, 
a first-class physician, who has a beautiful house out here, 
just at the end of the street-car line. She takes patients 
there, three or four at a time, in lovely separate rooms, 
and she has a trained nurse for each, and all is quiet and 
beautiful — ^just like a home ; and their friends, their rela- 
tives, I mean, can go to see them daily. Now, Mrs. 
Hook, I will go to Doctor Welsh and see if she has a 
room and a nurse for you. We can manage it, I am sure, 

and she will telegraph to Doctor T . To-morrow I 

will take you to Doctor Welsh’s house, and this after- 
noon I will send you in the things you will need — a little 
trunk, neat underwear and gowns, and a nice wrapper, 
cap, and slippers for your first sitting up. As to the fam- 
ily, do not worry ; Maria Jane Moss will leave her dress- 
making and take care of them for a few weeks. Why, 
you ’ll be at home, as the doctor said, in six weeks as 
well as ever ! ” 

Persis swept down all resistance by her firm determi- 
nation. The world began to look a little brighter to 
Mrs. Hook, and the prospect of a trunk, an article which 
in her wildest dreams of splendor she had never expected 
to own, even caused her to smile. 

When Persis came in to dinner that day she was 
decked in the glories of her up-town garb. “I have 
been shopping,” she announced; “and never did the 
rabies of buying so possess me. I had to control my 
excitement rigorously. ” 


TO ALL ITS SEASON. 1 85 

She then stated the case of Mrs. Hook. There was 
plenty of sympathy ; but Cousin Rebecca said firmly, 
“I think there was no sense in humoring her in that 
way. You know the hospitals are well managed, and 
quite good enough. ” 

“Yes; but she was past arguing with. I could not 
force her to see the truth. She was in an agony of terror 
and distrust which would simply have insured her death. 
Her only hope is in calm confidence and renewed 
strength. 1 am doing all I can to secure them for her. 
I have ordered her dinner from a good restaurant. I 
shall go and see Dr. Welsh, and to-morrow morning take 
Mrs. Hook to a Turkish bath and then to the doctor’s. 
I’ve no doubt it will be her first ride in a carriage.” 

About half the neighborhood crowded to doors and 
windows to ^see Mrs. Hook’s departure. “You’re all 
right now, with Miss Thrale to see to you.” “Oh, 
you’re in for a real picnic!” “That great doctor will 
cure you. ” ‘ ‘ Never fret, we ’ll look out for the children. ” 
“My I ain’t you in style.” And thus the chorus of the 
women cheered her out of sight. 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


1 86 


CHAPTER XIV. 

THE RULE OF LIFE. 

“ And there shall rise a brighter day, 

Beyond this scene of calm and strife, 

Where love shall hold imperial sway 
And goodness be the rule of life.” 

While Persis administered as much of her property 
as was involved in her charities Mr. Inskip was still her 
man of business. Her absolute confidence in his good 
judgment and his fatherly interest left her mind free for 
the duties she had assumed at Gardner Street. 

“Persis Thrale,’’ said Mr. Inskip, with some indigna- 
tion in his tone, “I’m afraid you’ve lost your head. 
Here you have spent almost six hundred dollars on one 
single person !” 

It was a lovely May morning. Mr. Inskip was bend- 
ing over his desk in his private office and Persis was 
swinging idly to and fro in a rocking-chair by the open 
window. 

“Yes,” said Persis, in calm reply to Mr. Inskip’s 
heated tone ; “ I consider that the best-spent money that 
ever went through my fingers. ’’ 

Mr. Inskip whirled his office chair about until he had 
his back to the desk and his face toward Persis, who 
brought her rocker to a stand-still. 


THE RULE OF LIFE. 


187 

'‘How long, Persis, will your property, would any 
property, stand the strain if you, living among hundreds 
of the impoverished, begin to allow yourself to give indi- 
viduals hundreds of dollars ? I Ve always been afraid 
your zeal would outrun your discretion.” 

“Until now,” smiled Persis, “I have been beautifully 
discreet, and have not intrenched on my capital.” 

“If you keep other outlays as you have arranged 
them this six hundred will overrun the income.” 

“ Maybe my own summer trip need not be so expen- 
sive. In fact, Harriet and I think of going where we can 
have just as good a time, and just as healthful, but where 
expenses will be less ; and what we do spend will go to 
struggling people who need it. ” 

“ I ’ll warrant, some new fad of sacrifice. ” 

“Now, Mr. Inskip, don’t be savage. Let me tell 
you that this affair of Mrs. Hook was very unusual, and 
I am not likely to meet the same need again. I spent 
nearly six hundred dollars on her, it is true ; but what 
did I get by it ? With that sum I purchased the life of 
the mother of seven children. It gave me opportunity 
to see and show that I really accept the Christ-doctrine, 

‘ all ye are brethren. ’ Spending it I obeyed my Lord : 

‘ do unto others as ye would that others should do unto 
you. ’ With this comparatively smalf outlay I have been 
able to impress on a number of my people that the re- 
ligion of Jesus has in it the elements of self-sacrifice and 
true love. Even on the ground of philanthropy I do n’t 
see how I could have done other than I did, having the 
means. There was my sister-woman, my Christian sister. 


88 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


suffering from a terrible affliction. I had seen her strug- 
gling to live down and work off her disease until resolu- 
tion was useless, and she was obliged to give up her 
painful task of earning her few dimes a day. I saw her 
haggard, emaciated, terrified, weeping. Could I put the 
saving of a paltry six hundred against all that terrible mis- 
ery.? For six hundred dollars — or six thousand — would 
I have been willing to take her physical disabilities, even 
relieved by all the appliances of wealth? On the one 
side I stood in perfect health and strength, young, un- 
burdened, with money to spare. On the other side was 
this mother of seven children, poor, suffering, grown old 
before her time, and lacking that general knowledge 
which would have enabled her better to estimate her 
chances for recovery. You would not have hesitated a 
minute in such a case, Mr. Inskip. I know you. You 
would have written out a check. Result ; Mrs. Hook is 
perfectly well, happy, at work. ” 

When the enemy thus carried the war into his own 
territories Mr. Inskip wheeled his chair about and be- 
gan to grumble over his papers. “Well, well, I sup- 
pose you will do such things now and then. I must do 
what I can to make it good to you. A little judicious 
re-investing would square that all up. I traded the Bar- 
ber Street property for three houses out on High Street. 
If I could sell one of those for seven or eight hundred 
more than I gave for it your extravagance would be 
cancelled.” 

“Couldn’t you sell it for double what you gave for 
it, especially if you found some one who wanted it very 


THE RULE OF LIFE. 


189 

greatly/’ jeered Persis, looking up the street to see if 
Harriet were coming ; for this was Saturday, and the two 
were intent on going for summer hats. 

‘^Now do n’t be greedy,” said Mr. Inskip. “That 
is the natural rebound of lavishness ; I Ve no doubt 
you ’ll die a miser. ” 

“From that may Providence save me ! I’d rather 
die in the almshouse. ” 

‘ ‘ I should n’t be surprised at either denouement^ ” said 
Mr. Inskip. “I shall advertise one of the houses at a 
suitable figure ; and remember, whenever you are ab- 
surdly lavish you put me to all this trouble ; also remem- 
ber that I do n’t do ‘ real estate ’ work for any one but 
you and myself.” 

“How much I appreciate it !” cried Persis. “As 
soon as your eldest girl is through school I mean to in- 
spire her with all my notions and bring her into my 
work ; and wont you have a happy time with both of 
us!” 

“At present I ’d be happier to have you go and meet 
Miss Hughes, not wait for her,” laughed Mr. Inskip. 

“Just let me tell you some new undertakings. I 
have started a club of up-towners called the ‘ Fragment 
Society.’ Also, I have formed a committee of some 
young fellows about Gardner Street to provide a reading- 
room — a place of cheerful, safe resort, very simple and 
cheap. ” 

“Persis, Persis, be careful.” 

“Just let me tell you how I mean to manage it. I 
am going to get the rent of the two rooms we have 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


190 

chosen from business men, applying first to the employ- 
ers of the young fellows who will use the place. Twenty 
gentlemen can shoulder that rent without knowing it. 
The next point will be to furnish the rooms ; chairs, 
tables, books, pictures, games are needed, also dishes 
and cooking utensils for the little refreshment-room. 
My Fragment Club can fit those out to a nicety. I should 
not wonder if a violin or two, a couple of flutes and a 
parlor organ were to be had. There are some good finds 
in old family rubbish-heaps. I am going to ask some of 
my young gentlemen friends to furnish some dumb-bells 
and a few other appliances for exercise. The young men 
have set the membership fees at fifty cents a month for 
those in work, and twenty-five cents for those out of 
work. These fees will pay for newspapers, magazines 
and gas. The lunch counter must pay for outlay of ma- 
terial and settle our fuel bills. A cup of tea, coffee or 
chocolate is to be had with a roll for five cents ; a big 
sandwich five cents, pie ditto. Milk, sandwich and 
doughnut, ten cents ; and so on. We must have a wo- 
man who understands bread and biscuit making and the 
preparation of the other articles on our simple menu. A 
young man must be hired to keep the room in order, 
look after the books and other property, make the place 
pleasant and hospitable, and interest himself in any who 
come there in ‘ distress of mind, body or estate. ’ I shall 
get such a factotum through the Young Men’s Christian 
Association, and his salary and that of the woman must 
be met. I expect to get Dr. Bond’s church to pay the 
young man, and my friends in our Art and Architecture 


THE RULE OF LIFE. 


I9I 

Club’ to pay the woman. It is time our club was useful 
as well as ornamental. Now what do you think of all 
that r 

*‘I think you are a splendid planner, Persis. All 
blessing go with you. There is Harriet in the office 
now. ” 

^^One thing more: I want some business men to 
come on Saturday evenings, and talk of useful things. I 
shall persuade a physician to come and give some good 
instruction in hygiene and morals. I want you to come 
and instruct in certain simple points of common law that 
all should understand. I ’ll have one of the hospital 
Internes give them an Emergency talk ; one of the High 
School superintendents will come and talk about self- 
education, and so on. Free-and-easy talks they shall all 
be, questions allowed to be asked. Some traveller will 
tell of foreign lands with a stereopticon to illustrate the 
telling ; and Dr. Bond and more stereopticon will wake 
them up about missions.” 

Persis,” said Mr. Inskip, taking her hand, as he 
looked at her flashing black eyes and cheeks glowing 
with intense interest, ‘‘did not one of your friends once 
say that she thought this life you have chosen must be 
dull and monotonous ? I know of no one who has more 
variety in thought and incident than you do ; no one 
that has wider and more exciting interests and a broader 
outlook than you have. Your work is one that will never 
be exhausted ; every day will afford new hopes and new 
achievements. I think I do not know a happier 
woman than you are. ” 


192 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Yes, Persis was happy. “Each morning saw some 
work begun, each evening saw it close.” Her way 
opened ever wider and clearer before her eyes. Her 
friends said of her laughingly, that if there was anything 
that Persis Thrale did not know it was not for lack of 
asking questions and searching it out ; and if there was 
any lack of help for her work it was not for want of ask- 
ing for it. She made her requisitions on all her acquaint- 
ances, and few refused her their aid. 

The kindergarten was full of children, and as the lit- 
tle pupils outgrew their studies there they passed into 
the public schools to justify the good training which Har- 
riet had given them. Girl after girl went from Mrs. 
Sayce’s sewing- classes to Miss Rebecca’s dressmaking 
room, or to Miss Susan’s flower work, and erelong went 
from these, sensible, self-respecting, self-supporting 
women. Season lapsed into season, vacations were taken 
and given, homes built up, the weakly were made strong, 
and in this round of duty Persis scarcely noticed that 
three years had glided by since she projected the Common- 
sense Club Room, which had saved and built up into 
manliness so many young fellows of the neighborhood. 

Persis came from the club room one morning in June. 
She had been there to give the secretary in charge an in- 
vitation sent through her to all the members of the club. 
A wealthy gentleman who owned a large country seat had 
asked the entire club to spend the Fourth of July on his 
grounds to enjoy a dinner, speeches and fireworks. As 
Persis reached her house she noticed that her front door 
stood wide open, and at the bottom of the two or three 












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THE RULE OF LIFE. 


193 


steps leading to it was a big disreputable-looking woman. 
On her head was a battered black hat, over her shoul- 
ders a thin torn cotton shawl, while her faded and 
soiled calico frock hung about her rough, badly-broken 
shoes. 

Persis went up the steps. In the hall were two children 
playing horse. A rosy black-eyed six-year-old boy with 
a crop of close black curls, his sturdy little figure neatly 
dressed in a brown linen suit, drove for horse a little 
blond dumpling of a girl in a blue chintz Mother Hub- 
bard gown neatly finished in white ruffles. A pair of 
reins, knit in gaudy colors and furnished with bells, af- 
forded all that was needed to convert the little maid into 
an antic horse and the lad into a judicious driver. The 
laughter of the children and the kindly tones of the boy, 
gentle in his play, echoed into the street. Looking down 
from this scene of happy innocence into the red, marred 
face of the watching woman, Persis recognized her. 

Suke Ryan ! Is it you ? I have lost you for a long 
time ! I scarcely know you ; you are changed. ” 

Oh, yes,” said Suke with indifference, “ I Ve used 
myself pretty rough. We all change and run down.” 
“Or up ? ” said Persis suggestively. 

“ I ain’t the kind that goes up,” said Suke with defi- 
ance. “I say, Miss, is that the young un I give you, 
the boy ? Let ’s see, what was his name ? Dorry ? Oh 
yes, so it was. Is that him ? ” 

“ Yes ; and he ’s a real nice little fellow too.” 

“ Who’s the other one, the girl ? ” 

“A child adopted by my cousins, the Misses North.” 

New Samaritan. I ^ 


194 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“See here, Miss Thrale, what would you give to 
know all about where that un came from ? ” 

“Nothing, I think,” said Persis, with a start. “I 
believe I had rather not know. It is better for the child 
to go on her way without any burden from her antece- 
dents. ” 

“If you mean better for her not to know she s of 
scum kind, you ’re all out. Her mother was as good as 
they build ’em.” 

“ How do you know 
“’Cause I brought her here.” 

‘ ‘ Do you want to come in and see Dorry, Suke ? ” 
“No, I guess not. I ’ve quit caring for him, and if 
he is one of the going-up kind it’s just as well he do n’t 
have me to remember. I ’m a poor lot, Miss. ” 

“At least, Suke, come into the sitting-room and rest 
awhile, and have a good cup of tea and some biscuits.” 

Suke followed hesitatingly, as if fearing the respecta- 
bility of the place. Persis looked into the flower-room 
and asked Trinka to go to the kitchen for a pot of tea 
and something to eat with it. Suke, while waiting for 
the tea, rocked back and forth and stared at the room. 

“Never was in here before. Women said it was 
nice, but you mind I would n’t come ; ’t was n’t in my 
line. I s’pose you like it ; but I ’d ruther a room where 
I can knock my pipe ashes out onto the floor and upset 
a jug o’ beer ’thout spoiling nothing. I ’d get to fair ha/e 
the sight o’ them books and pictures and flowers. They 
look /oo good to me. I ’d ruther a bar-room full of smoke 
and whisky, a pack of cards to play for drinks, and meb- 


THE RULE OF LIFE. I95 

by a fight coming off to stir you up — I would, now.” 
She glared boldly at Persis. 

^‘Tastes differ,” said Persis coolly. “An end will 
come to it all, Suke ; what then ? ” 

“Dead and done wdth,” said Suke. “You needn’t 
try to get me to believe nothing else. ” 

Trinka came with the tea, some bread and butter and 
ginger-cake. Persis handed Suke these refreshments as 
politely as if she had been a morning caller far higher up 
in the social scale. Suke thirstily drank three cups ot 
tea ; of the food she partook sparingly. 

“I live mostly on drinking,” she said. The tea 
seemed to mollify her. When it was all gone she leaned 
back in the chair and spoke in a lower, less belligerent 
tone : “I will tell you ’bout that little girl. Her mother 
and dad were Scotch people and hadn’t any relations. 
The man came over here to look for work, and meant to 
send for his wife. He took to drink and began to quit 
writing, and she, poor soul, got fretted about him and 
picked up her few duds and what little she could earn 
for her passage, and over she came, and by bad luck she 
found him. She couldn’t keep him straight, and he 
dragged her down into the streets folks call Sodom and 
Gomorrah. She kept her room right tidy and her things 
together, and did her best ; but he got killed by the fall 
of a derrick down on the docks, and she wasn’t able to 
do anything.” 

“Why didn’t she go to the hospital ?” 

“’Long of being a stranger in a strange land and 
having no friends ; and the kind of folks that help you 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


196 

give our part of the town the go-by, don’t you see? 
Anyway, the baby was born, and we women felt sorry for 
her and looked to her as well as we could. I know I did 
my best ; but I saw right off the heart was gone out of 
her and the strength, and she was n’t going to get well. 
It was real pitiful, Miss, to see her lifting up in bed, 
with her fluttering weak hands, keeping that little baby 
of hers clean and tidy, and mothering it, and it so soon 
going to have no mother. When she saw how that was 
she broke down and cried dreadful.” 

'‘Why did you not come for me?” cried Persis indig- 
nantly. 

Suke looked at her with open-mouthed stupidity. 
“’Twa’n’t in your beat, Miss. You couldn’t take care 
of all the city, could you? Besides, I s’pose it didn’t 
look so bad to me as it does to you. I ’m used to such 
things. Then, again, I was kind of mad at you for get- 
ting Dorry from me, and mighty mad with myself for 
being choused out of him ; and so — well, I did n’t care 
to have to do with you or this place any more at all. 
When she mourned to me about the little one left to be 
abused and wicked she made me promise as soon as she 
was dead I ’d carry it out to be put into some home or 
asylum ; and then she cried again over ‘ her little girl left 
to be ill-used,’ and she got to praying, and I couldn’t 
stand it ; for if there is one thing I hate clean above an- 
other it is praying. So I said to her : ‘ Mrs. Grey, you 
hold up. I ’ll do better for that baby nor the Lord can, 
a far sight. ’ And I up and told her all about you — how 
you were terrible rich and pious, and working for poor 


THE RULE OF LIFE. 


197 


critters all the while, and having church in your house, 
and how you'd adopted Dorry and Tommy; and I said 
as soon as she was dead I 'd take her baby right to you. 
She asked me could n't I bring you to her just once ; but 
I did n’t want to do that ; so I said I would as soon as 
you got back to town. But I promised firm and sure 
about the baby. " 

“Oh, Suke, you cruel, wicked woman, not to come 
to me !" 

“La, Miss, what's the use of crying over spilt milk? 
She's dead long ago, ain't she? She slipped off very 
sudden, the baby lying in her arms. Well, soon as we 
laid her out I took olf the baby. We did our best laying 
her out. I bought four dip candles, and we made a 
cross of a piece of black cloth for her breast ; but, along 
of her not being a Catholic, we did n't get the priest, and 
the poor-overseer buried her next day. I rolled up the 
baby and started for here. It was pretty late, of a Sunday 
night, and I hated to come in to see you. As I got to 
the house, by the baby-school door, I saw a light going 
to the basement. So I laid the baby close to the door, 
as it was crying fearful loud. Well, the light came back, 
and the door never opened. I waited about as long as I 
dared in the storm ; then just as I was going to pick the 
young un up and go round and knock at your window 
the door opened, and the baby was took in ; so I run. 
In a day or so I found out at the grocery woman's that 
your folks had kept the baby. So that's the end 
of it." 

‘ ‘ What was the mother's name ?" 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


198 

“ Agnes Mac Call/’ 

“ I wish the child had had something of the mother’s 
to keep. ” 

“Well, Miss, she told me when I took the baby to 
you to take her Bible along with it ; but when she said 
that the Bible was gone. ’T was nothing but a little old 
black book, and one day I needed some paper to heat 
up a cup of tea for her, and I just took that ; it did as 
well as any other paper, and she never knew it ; she 
couldn’t read while she was sick, her eyes were dim 
along of weakness.” 

“You burned the poor creature’s Bible!” cried 
Persis. 

“ Yes,” drawled Suke ; “what harm was that ? I ’ve 
heard say they do n’t cost much, and there ’s places 
where you can get them for nothing.” 

“You seem to have no moral sensei” cried Persis 
despairingly. 

“ I ain’t much sense of any kind,” she said resignedly. 

“Suke, tell me : where did you come from, and how 
were you brought up ?” 

“ Don’t know where I came from, and never was 
brought up at all. First I remember I was roaming the 
streets, and I ’ve roamed ’em pretty well ever since. I 
do n’t know how old I am, but I ’m gray and I ’m wrin- 
kled, and I guess I ’ll go on roaming the streets till I 
die. Some children are children of homes, Miss, and 
some are children of the gutter. I ’m that kind. I ’m 
going now, and I do n’t mean ever to see you again. It 
kinder worrits me, and I believe it worrits you.” 


THE RULE OF LIFE. 


199 


She went out, never giving a glance at the two chil- 
dren in whose life-histories she had had so large a share. 

Persis watched her going down the street with dogged 
shambling motion, until a turn of a corner hid her from 
her eyes for ever. Oh, wreck of womanhood — at whose 
door to be laid ? 


200 


THE NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER XV. 

A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 

“ And now amid the fading light 
With faltering steps I journey on, 

Waiting the coming of the night 
When earthly light and life are gone." 

As Persis turned from watching Suke Ryan, the hall 
was suddenly filled with her family : Harriet coming 
from the kindergarten, Miss Rebecca and Miss Susan 
from their work-rooms, for the noon hour. 

“I have something to tell you,” said Persis, taking 
the little Dora by the hand and turning to the sitting- 
room. There she told them Suke’s story. 

“Oh,” said Miss Susan openly weeping, “it makes 
my heart ache to think of what that young woman suf- 
fered ; but is n’t it beautiful, truly beautiful, to be allowed, 
as we are, to help God — to be his instruments in answer- 
ing prayer !” 

“I was certain,” said Miss Rebecca, sitting very 
erect and polishing her spectacles, “that this child was 
not of a common kind. I knew I could n’t have been 
drawn to her the way I was unless she had good 
blood. ” Thus Miss Rebecca : ignoring the memory of 
the father who had taken to drink and been killed by a 
derrick. 

“ To think,” cried Harriet, “of that wretched Suke 
refusing to come for you, Persis. What agony of mind 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 


201 


that mother must have felt at the thought of leaving 
her baby in such a den. ” 

“The Lord comforts his own, Harriet,'’ observed 
Rebecca with dignity. “No doubt he gave her assur- 
ance that he would provide for her child. You know 
Suke said that she dropped off suddenly, and no doubt 
up to the last she expected to be able before she died to 
put her child into good hands. And even if that was 
not so, I must believe that as soon as she was dead she 
was led to know that the Lord would make good the 
promise, ‘ Leave your fatherless children with me, and I 
will preserve them alive. ’ It is a good thought that the 
Lord may let her see that her child is innocent and hap- 
py, and will be brought up as a girl should be.” 

“I think,” suggested Persis, “that the child should 
have her mother’s name. You have called her Dora, 
supposably North, when she needs a surname. Why not 
call her Dora Agnes Mac Call 

“We must,” said Miss Rebecca, firmly. “We must 
call her Dora Agnes, right out. That poor young mother 
that cared for her child and loved it, and died with it in 
her arms, has her rights, and must not be forgotten. 
We will tell the child about her. She must have been a 
good woman, patient and faithful, coming over here 
alone to try and save her husband ! Yes, Dora Agnes 
shall know all about her !” 

“I’m glad I had the little gown and shirt and piece 
of patchwork quilt done up and saved. They must be 
some of her mother’s work, and should be more precious 
than gold to Dora Agnes,” said Miss Susan. 


202 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


‘ ‘ Dorry, ” said Persis turning to the boy, who stood 
leaning on her chair, “run over to Mrs. Trenton's and 
tell her that I am coming there to tea this evening. Be 
brisk and you will get back in time for dinner. " 

“Mrs. Massey says she'll take me and Tommy Tib- 
bets to the Park to play this afternoon, " said Dorry going 
for his hat. ‘ ^ Can we go 

“Yes, and take tea - lunch and stay until eight 
o'clock, too.” 

“Persis,” said Miss Rebecca, “what new scheme 
have you on hand now ? I see there is one. I can tell 
it by the look in your eyes, the set of your mouth, and 
the way you hold your eyebrows straight. ” 

“You are very observing. Cousin Rebecca,” laughed 
Persis, ‘ ‘ but you are right. I have a new scheme, and 
one that must immediately be worked out. It must not 
happen again that one of God's hidden ones is dragged 
down into Sodom and Gomorrah to die, neglected and 
unhelped, without one comfort of Christianity. The or- 
phans of that quarter, the orphan babies, must not be 
left to be the stuff they make criminals out of ” 

‘ ‘ What is to be done about it, Persis } Seems to me 
it will take long planning to see it through, ' ' said Miss 
Susan. 

“ My plan has sprung from my brain this time fully 
armed, complete, and panoplied as Minerva from Jove's 
head,” returned Persis, “ though of course I must discuss 
it and examine it, and test it in each particular, before I 
get it at work. My idea is to have a Bible woman 
and a Bible nurse established together in a room on the 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 


203 


safest edge of Sodom and Gomorrah. We will get elder- 
ly women, fit for the work, experienced and kindly, and 
not afraid. Their two rooms must be made comfortable, 
and they must have some depository of clothing, food, 
medicines, needed articles — as bedding — to draw upon for 
their work. Those streets must be canvassed. The in- 
nocent and the babies must not be lost in the crowded 
dens of vice. We must have a life-saving station on the 
verge of that sea of ruin and misery ! Yes, it must be 
done quickly. I '11 talk it over with Mr. and Mrs. Tren- 
ton this evening.” 

That evening they sat long at the Trentons’ simple 
tea table. The good dame who was both servant and 
friend, and fellow helper in the mission work, carried 
olf the two children and put them to bed, and still 
Persis and her friends sat discussing what more was 
to be done for the heretofore practically neglected neigh- 
borhood. 

‘‘The proper workers must be found, and their sala- 
ries secured, ” said Persis. ‘ ‘ And the first is harder than 
the second. The salaries shall be had, if I have to break 
Mr. Inskip’s heart by trespassing on capital.” 

“All can be found,” said Mr. Trenton. “ The Lord 
has evidently called for work in that forsaken field. It 
has for several weeks been on my mind to start a men's 
mission there, and I have been talking with several real 
good Salvation Army young men to take three or four 
rooms for a barracks and start their work. I believe 
they are the ones for the place, and I have been looking 
for the needed money among some of our liberal givers. ” 


204 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“ Let us go into this work without losing a day/’ said 
Persis ; “too much time has been lost already.” 

‘ ‘ It will be my last personal work in this quarter, Per- 
sis,” said Mr. Trenton. 

“You ’re not going away ! ” 

“It is absolutely necessary for our children ; we can- 
not keep them here, they need out-of-door space. We can- 
not house them longer as we are forced to do here. When 
we felt the need, and yet no door was opened for us other- 
where, we thought it was not the Lord’s way for us to 
go. Now I am urgently called to a new church formed 
in the suburbs. I think my way is plain. ” 

“And who will shepherd these few sheep in the wil- 
derness ? ” asked Persis. 

‘ ‘ The mission shall not be left vacant, ” said Mr. 
Trenton. “You know Mr. Charles Cooper, v/ho has 
helped me so much ? He finished his theological studies 
this spring. He will take my place ; it was decided last 
night, and if you had not come here I was going over to 
tell you this evening. He is the very man for this place ; 
he was a wide-awake young physician when he felt com- 
pelled, fairly compelled, to study for the ministry. This 
work is a cure of bodies and souls, and a pastor with a 
thorough medical education will be invaluable.” 

“ He is n’t married,” said Persis in a dissatisfied tone. 

“ The evil is not without remedy, ” hinted Mrs. Tren- 
ton ; “have you rot noticed ? ” 

“ Harriet ! ” exclaimed Persis. “Well, there are none 
so blind as those who will not see. What can I do with- 
out Harriet ! ” 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 20$ 

“Now that his future is settled I feel sure that he 
means to ask Harriet to share it,” said Mrs. Trenton. 

“Harriet is so invaluable in that kindergarten, and we 
have harmonized so well and been such friends ! I shall be 
too lonesome for words if she leaves me. Then, too, no 
one else is likely to be able to take up that work as Harriet 
does. She gives her time, her work ; she has a small in- 
come that suffices her when she has her home with me, but 
that income must be supplied by salary for another. 
Well, Mr. Inskip will tear his hair and grow old in a day,” 
said Persis, with the sweet resignation we can afford for 
other people’s troubles. 

“We must pray the Lord of the harvest to send forth 
laborers into his vineyard,” said Mr. Trenton. 

“And then keep our eyes open and exercise our com- 
mon-sense in looking them up,” said Persis. “But, as 
we are on the subject of marrying and giving in marriage, 
there is to be a little wedding over there in my sitting- 
room before I start with Harriet for summer rest.” 

“Whose wedding?” 

“Amos Mason and Maria Jane. I don’t know any 
one who has been more benefited than Amos by that 
reading-room. It has made a man of him. He has 
been promoted in the factory, gets good wages, and has 
saved up enough to furnish nicely three rooms. He has 
rented three on the first floor of the house opposite us, 
and he means to paint and paper them himself. Amos 
is so handy ; he can do ’most anything. His mother is 
to live with them and do the housekeeping. Amos 
wanted her to leave the box factory a year ago, but she 


2o6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


would not ; she wanted Amos to be able to save money 
for his furniture. Maria Jane will go on with her little 
dressmaking business. They will be a model pair, and 
have a model home, as an object-lesson for the neighbor- 
hood. When I look at Maria Jane — strong, full of hope 
and energy — I can scarcely realize that she is the tired, 
feeble, discouraged, overworked girl of four or five years 
ago. A little help has done such wonders for her. ” 

“That is it,” said Mr. Trenton ; “the help that real- 
ly helps, that inspires courage and self-help. Much of 
the charity of to-day is like throwing bones to a dog. It 
is not twice blessed ; it is not blessed at all. To give 
well we must give ourselves with our gifts. Then daily 
wisdom will come with daily benefactions, and as we 
help our brother up and walk with him our own souls 
shall be enlarged.” 

“What will Mrs. Moss do when Maria Jane leaves 
her.?” asked Mrs. Trenton. 

“Amos proposed renting four rooms and having her 
live with them ; but her work for me makes it better for 
her to be where she is more independent. She sews, 
cooks meals for the sick, washes, mends, gives out gar- 
ments, and is called out to nurse the sick, and she might 
be a member of the family too active for the comfort of 
the others. I mean to give her a room in my house, and 
five dollars a week. A room in my house means many 
perquisites. Coal, for instance, I buy in summer by the 
car-load, and Jim Bowles distributes the coal-scuttles 
through the house each day, keeping account of them, 
and as the price is reckoned by wholesale at lowest-sea- 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 


207 


son rates, their coal costs them about half that it does 
other buyers of small quantities. ‘The destruction of 
the poor is their poverty ’ in many ways. I find that the 
people around me who buy coal by the pailful pay often 
three or four times as much per ton as the rich do. If I 
were two persons instead of one I 'd set up a coal-yard at 
one end of Gardner Street and a pure-milk depot at the 
other.” 

“I had no idea of the exorbitant rates the poor pay 
for fuel.” 

“It is simply this : the small retail dealers give them 
the coal by the bucket at from twelve to sixteen dollars 
a ton, and my way gives it to them at from four to five 
dollars. I do n’t pauperize them by presenting it free, 
except to the sick and entirely destitute during some 
crisis. The others prefer to pay. All they want is to be 
helped to self-help.” 

That visit which was to compel Mr. Inskip to tear his 
hair Persis paid next day. As she entered the inner office 
Mr. Inskip said : “ Good afternoon. I was looking for 
you. I have some pleasant news for you. ” 

“That’s fine,” said Persis, “for I have some bad 
news for you. ” 

“So.? Let us be like the little negroes who always 
eat their desert before their dinner : let us have the good 
news first.” 

“All right,” said Persis. “Which is the most com- 
fortable chair in this office, so I may brace myself to bear 
the shock of joy? And where is a fan? The weather 
points clearly to summer vacations. Now for good news. ” 


208 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“I have leased the two vacant lots northwest of the 
city for ten years, so that you will have increase of one 
thousand a year in your income.” 

“Oh, be joyful!” cried Persis. “My bad news has 
vanished like mists before the sun. I had come to tell 
you that I must use a thousand a year more, even if it 
came out of that capital you nurse so fondly. A Bible 
woman and a Bible nurse down in Sodom and Gomor- 
rah, with the rent of their rooms, will cost me seven 
hundred dollars, and at least three hundred will be need- 
ed to salary a kindergarten teacher.” And the new plans 
were detailed. 

“So Harriet is to be married, is she? ^And when are 
you to be married, Persis ?” 

“As far as I know, I have no vocation in that line. 
I am entirely content in my work. ” 

“It appears to me that marriage is woman’s natural 
and happiest lot,” suggested Mr. Inskip. 

“ So it may be in most cases ; but there are excep- 
tions, and I think I am one of them. If I married I 
could not possibly live where and as I do. Yet in this 
work I have chosen my part, and I cannot look back. 
You remember it is written, ‘The unmarried woman 
careth for the things of the Lord, but she that is married 
careth how she may please her husband. ’ If I married, a 
husband would naturally feel that I owed to his h6me 
and himself a reasonable portion of my time. He might 
also hold even stronger views than you assert regarding 
the inviolability of my capital. His affection for me 
would cause him deep anxiety lest I should overwork in 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 


209 


my charities, or be exposed to personal injury or conta- 
gion. His fears would cause him to interfere with my 
freedom of action. I don’t think I should like that, 
however good the motive might be. Now I go here and 
there, carrying out my projects, and very seldom think of 
myself at all ; and you see nothing happens to me. If I 
am in the midst of legions of microbes and bacilli I bear 
a charmed life, and am not harmed a particle. ” 

“ It is my duty, however, to impress two cardinal busi- 
ness principles upon your mind, Persis : the first is, 
never intrench on your capital. When you begin to do 
that you will find it melts away like snow in spring. The 
diminution of capital will mean inability to maintain 
your undertakings. It is better to do a few things 
thoroughly and continuously than to begin and give up 
many. It would be a pity indeed if, having lavished your 
fortune on your work to the point of its exhaustion, 
your work ceased and you reached old age or disability 
impoverished. Extend your work, if it pleases you, as 
income extends, but do not jeopardize income, especially 
when it is entirely mortgaged in your undertakings. You 
have a large constituency to share disappointment or 
failure with you.” 

“So I have,” said Persis frankly, “and I often think 
the people whom I help owe more to you than to me ; 
for your business management keeps my work in the 
region of the possible. I truly intend to listen to 
your judgment — ^just as far as I can. What is your other 
cardinal principle ? ” 

- “ Make a will. Every possessor of property should. ” 


New Samaritan. 


14 


210 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


^‘That is true. I have thought of that, and set 
down some little items. You would better draw me 
up a will.” 

“You must give me instructions. Let me hear some 
of your ideas on that subject. ” 

“There are Tommy and Dorry. I want provision 
made to school them and teach them trades, or such 
business or profession as they may be fittest for : and at 
twenty-one they are each to have three hundred dollars. 
I think a young man with a fair education, a business 
learned, and three hundred dollars to take him where he 
may wish to go to establish himself, is well enough off. 
If he has any thing good in him he has a fair field of de- 
velopment. ” 

‘ ‘ That is true. I agree with you heartily. ” 

“That is my plan for those two boys if I live. If I 
die, I hope you will take them in charge and carry it 
out.” 

“Very good.” 

“To Serena Bowles, Mrs. Massey, Mrs. Gayley, and 
Trinka, each five hundred dollars. If any one of them 
should be dead when the will goes into effect the money 
will go instead to the endowment of my Day Nursery. 
Oh, has Mrs. Inskip told you how beautifully that Day 
Nursery is getting on? How it helps the mothers, and 
improves the children ? and what lovely, round, happy, 
fascinating little roly-polys they are down there ? ” 

“Mrs. Inskip raves about it as you do.” 

“Come down and visit it, so you too will be inter- 
ested. ” 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 


21 1 


‘ ‘ I shall not forget it, be sure. Is it not impressed on 
my mind by your conduct ? I had concluded a little 
transaction which brought you twenty-five hundred dol- 
lars, and I was not even permitted to get it into bank. 
You took the entire amount to hire and furnish a place 
and establish that Day Nursery,” cried Mr. Inskip. 

‘ ‘ Why, Mr. Inskip ! What else could I do .? I had 
been praying to the Lord to make clear my way about 
that Day Nursery, which seemed to be so much needed, 
and there came that money. What kind of a sinner 
would I have been to keep it for myself! Now as to my 
will. I want an endowment of six hundred a year set 
aside for that Day Nursery, and the same for the kinder- 
garten work. The house on Gardner Street is to be kept 
to rent to reputable widows or single women receiving 
not over seven dollars a week, preference being given to 
the youngest with the lowest wages; and rents to be 
graded to cover only taxes, repairs and insurance rates 
on the building. Then there must be an endowment for 
a Bible nurse ; the nurse to have room, rent free, in the 
Gardner Street house, four hundred dollars salary, and 
two hundred in the hands of the committee to be used 
for food or comforts for her patients. Endow also 
this new work down in Sodom, and have an annuity of 
two hundred to help keep up that Common-sense Club 
and Reading-room for young men. Give a thousand 
each to the Clarke girls. There, I cannot think of any- 
thing else.” 

‘‘And who shall be the perpetual executors, the self- 
renewing Board of Trustees, to carry out these trusts ? ” 


212 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


** Three members of the session of Doctor Bond's 
church, three ladies of that congregation, and one minis- 
ter of some other church, which we will further determine 
upon. ” 

“You seem to have thought much of this, Persis.” 

“Yes, I have thought of it. When you have it all 
safely and securely set down then I shall be free of care 
about my worldly estate. I can go right on with my 
work and have no time for anxieties as to what shall 
come after me. If I stay in this world I have a work 
that makes my life happy and not unfruitful. If I go 
out of this world, you remember ‘ it is written, Eye hath 
not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the 
heart of man, the things that God hath laid up for those 
that love him. ' " 

“There is one word more,” said the lawyer. “City 
property like yours may largely increase. There may be 
more than you have provided for. What then ?” 

“ Let the surplus go to boy-saving, after the methods 
we are taking for Dorry and Tommy,” said Persis. 
“That is good work — good for the individual, good for 
the state, good for the church. ” 

“In fact, nothing could be better,” said Mr. Inskip. 

“The afternoon has slipped away unawares,” said 
Persis. “I am going out to tea with some of my up- 
town friends. . I hope the impetus of my talk here with 
you will not result in my boring them about my down- 
town friends.” 

She stood before the glass arranging her hat, and 
added in a meditative tone, “I don’t see how people 


A LIFE-SAVING STATION. 


213 


can hoard money, when there is so much real satisfaction 
to be had in spending it in good, useful, philanthropic 
work !” 

^ ‘ Personal interest in that work, ” laughed Mr. In- 
skip, “ is like the letting out of water. The little ripple 
may become the outpouring of all.” 

“ Don’t liken it to a flood : that carries destruction ; 
better take the simile of the spring and the river, that fills 
the land with plenty where it goes, ” replied Persis. 


214 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

“and SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 

“ They no more shall thirst or hunger, 

They no more with heat shall faint ; 

Christ for tears will give them gladness, 

Blissful rest for sore complaint.” 

Persis in her gray nurse’s-garb, bag in hand, stood 
on her door-step one bright May morning. A boy and a 
girl stood one on each side the step. Each had a little 
lunch-basket and a strap of books. These were Dorry, 
now eleven, and Dora Agnes, eight years old, both pupils 
at the public school. They looked down the street foi 
Tommy Tibbets, who always went with them. Present- 
ly Tommy, with his basket and book strap, came run- 
ning up. 

“ Miss Thrale, Aunt Serena says will you come see 
Gran’ma Mumsey this morning ; she ’s sick, and can’t 
get up.” 

Persis had expected such a summons ; she had seen 
how that frail life was lapsing to its close. 

Years of trouble are the years with histories. There 
is little to tell of months gliding by one after the other 
marked only by the growth of children to youth, the 
waxing of maturity to age, the slow upbuilding of busi- 
ness, the quiet progress of undertaken work towards the 
ideal, never attained, that we would have it be. In 
these years that had seen those baby kindergartners, 


AND SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 21 5 


Dorry, Tommy and Dora Agnes, growing almost out of 
childhood, all the work of Persis had seemed proportion- 
ately to thrive and enlarge. The club increased in num- 
bers and effectiveness : it had now a regular weekly lec- 
ture on popular science, and a Sunday afternoon Bible- 
class, while the restaurant department had extended until 
it afforded work and a living to a cook, Mrs. Picot, and 
her eldest daughter. The “Alma Club ” of ladies had 
done such a noble work that on a neighboring street the 
‘ ‘ Brothers Club ” of young college men had been estab- 
lished to do for men the work the Alma Club did for 
women. 

The Day Nursery and the kindergarten had made 
what seemed a new race of the children about Gardner, 
Webster and Ramsay Streets. The mission begun by 
Tom Trenton in the midst of that great revival had 
grown and extended into three outposts. Most of all 
the heart of Persis exulted in the change wrought in the 
quarter known as Sodom and Gomorrah. That name 
was now falling out of use. The work of the Salvation 
Army and the nurse and Bible women supported by Per- 
sis could be read on the records of the police, where, 
instead of constant fights, thefts, assaults, killings, cut- 
tings, brawls, were blank leaves, suggestive of quiet days, 
and a marked decrease in the number and enormity of 
crimes. The change could also be read in the appear- 
ance of the people thereabouts. They looked better fed; 
there were clean babies to be seen, and women who wore 
whole gowns and had their hair combed ; and one going 
down there could at times hear the laughter of children. 


2i6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


There had been men and women born again even in that 
dismal and evil locality. ‘ ‘ The Lord shall count when 
he writeth up the people that this and that man was born 
there. ” 

As they who reap rich harvest rejoice that they perse- 
vered in sowing seed, so Persis when she saw these moral 
sheaves come in was glad that she had been led to sow 
with no niggard hand. Besides these harvests that were 
reaped on earth there were others gathered into heaven, 
and as Persis, bidding the three children good-morning, 
went to visit Mrs. Mumsey, she felt that here was one to 
be gathered “as a shock of corn fully ripe.” 

Mrs. Mumsey was lying with her eyes shut. Serena 
had left nothing for Persis to do. The room was neat 
and shaded, the windows raised to admit the spring air, 
which even the city pavements and brick walls could not 
rob of all its sweetness ; on a little white-draped stand 
near the bed were some pinks in a glass. 

“Tommy brought them,” said Serena in a whisper. 

“ He had a dime some one had given him, and he ran to 
market for them early, because she likes ’em, and they 
mind her of times when she was a little girl.” 

Mrs. Mumsey opened her eyes and held out her small 
shrunken hand to Persis. 

“I’m going, dear. I do n’t feel any sickness or any 
pain ; I ’m just drifting out, like. I feel just as the baby 
does that its mother is rocking to sleep with a little song. 
You can’t hear it, you and Serena, because it isn’t for 
you but for me, and it just hums sweetly through my 
mind, soft and low, ‘ Even in the valley of the shadow of 


“AND SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 21/ 

death I shall fear no evil, for Thou art with me/” She 
closed her eyes again and lay listening, with the peace of 
childhood on her thin, wrinkled face. Persis sat beside 
her. After a little she spoke again : 

“Tve lived much longer than I thought to: it was 
the child did it. He gave me fresh life, hearing him talk 
and laugh, and seeing him running about, and having 
him to love and to love me. When he was off at school 
I thought about him, and it was a pleasure to go in his 
little room there and fix it up neat. And the last thing 
at night I went to take a look at him, and the first thing 
in the morning he put his head in at yon door to ask, 
‘Granny, can I do anything for you?' Oh, Tommy's a 
good boy. I know he's safe with you. Miss Thrale.” 

“Yes, indeed,” said Persis. “When you are gone 
home I will take him right over to Gardner Street and 
bring him up with Dorry. I 'm going to have a room 
for them cut off at the lower end of the hall. It will be 
nice and sunny, and I shall make it comfortable and 
teach them how to take care of it. Tommy will be a 
good man, and he wont forget you, you may be sure. ” 

“I ’d like him to remember me,” said the old lady. 
“None of us likes to be forgotten.” 

“We can none of us forget you, dear Grandma Mum- 
sey. You have helped us all toward heaven.” 

“This world has seemed like home to me. Miss Per- 
sis ; but for a few days past it has not seemed so any 
more, but heaven has seemed to be the real home, and 
its doors wide open. With the people about me here — 
Serena and Tommy and the rest — I still seemed to see 


2i8 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and hear those who went away long, long ago. They all 
seem as near and as dear as ever. I was married when I 
was eighteen, Miss Persis, and my husband and my two 
little girls died before I was twenty-four. A good kind 
man my Jason was, and he says to me going, ‘It may 
seem long to you, Anna, before you come, but it will not 
seem long to me.’ And now I am eighty almost, and 
the waiting has been long, though now it is over it don’t 
look so long as it felt ; it seems only a little ; and I see 
my mother and father and Jason and the girl babies as 
plain as ever.” 

“Is there anything I can do for you? Do you want 
anything?” asked Persis. 

“I would like to see Doctor Bond and have one more 
talk with him. He has been a blessed help and comfort 
to me. He is so old, and not strong, I hate to ask the 
trouble of him. ” 

“After I have made my rounds this morning I will 
take a carriage and go after him. I know he will wish to 
come. What else is there ? ” said Persis. 

“Nothing. The Second Bank has thirty dollars that 
has been kept for me a good many years for my burial. 
I want to have that used and no more. I put in twenty, 
and it has grown to thirty ; and I want to do for myself, 
and not be beholden, though I know none of you would 
grudge it. There ’s a little jug up on the mantel — I got 
it at the missionary meeting three years ago — and there ’s 
a wee bit of money in it I laid up for missions. Send 
the society that. Give Serena what she can use of my 
things, and divide up the rest among the poorest ones 


“AND SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 2ig 


about here. My hand got so thin years ago that I 
could n’t wear my wedding-ring. It is hung round my 
neck with a cord. Give that and my Bible to Tommy. 
And for you, Miss Persis, there’s only an old woman’s 
blessing. You’ve been good, good, good to me. Miss, 
and the Lord said, ‘ Inasmuch as ye did it unto the least 
one of these my brethren, ye did it unto me.’'” 

When Persis made her rounds next morning she went 
first to Mrs. Mumsey’s room. Her room was no longer 
the humble tenement that had housed the frail, self-deny- 
ing, simple body. Wider realms and more glorious hab- 
itations had opened for the redeemed soul. 

It was such recompense as this that made the years 
of her chosen labor seem to Persis short as the years 
which Jacob served for Rachel, which were to him but 
^ ‘ as a day, for thelove where with he loved her. ” A going 
out like that of Mrs. Mumsey brought the heavenly hori- 
zon very near — as near as the sky seems to children when 
the rainbow meets the earth just beyond the limits of 
their home, and they set forth to touch the arch of splen- 
dor and gather the treasures where it rests upon the sod. 

Serena Bowles missed her old friend and neighbor, for 
whom of late years she had done more and more kind 
offices rendered needful by the good woman’s increasing 
age and feebleness. She missed Tommy, too, who had 
been taken over to Gardner Street. Persis, appreciating 
Serena’s bereavement, went often to see her as she made 
her nursing visits. One morning she found Serena 
seated in the middle of her room, the rolls of clothes 
drying in her big basket, the fire going out in the laun- 


220 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


dry stove, the irons cooling. Serena appeared as one 
amazed. 

“What is wrong, Serena? Are you sick?” 

“Sick, Miss Persis ! Bless me, you could knock me 
down with a feather ! There ’s a lawyer-man been here. ” 

“Certainly not to give you notice to quit or to dis- 
train for rent, ” said Persis, smiling. ‘ ‘ What did he come 
for?” 

‘ ‘ That 's the thing, Miss. Why, I ’m clear upset over 
it. You know old Mrs. Bingham, she that was of Doctor 
Bond’s church, and died a month back ? I washed for 
her twenty years. And long ago, when her children died 
of sore throat, and the servants were scared and left, I 
went up there and did her kitchen work for her six weeks. 
‘I’ll never forget it of you, Serena,’ she often said to me. 
But, land, I never thought she’d remember me this way !” 

“What way, Serena?” 

‘ ‘ Why, she ’s left me twenty-five hundred dollars ! 
The lawyer-man says it ’s to me, and I can have it when 
I like, to use ; and she fixed it some way that Jim Bowles 
cannot take it. And I up and told the lawyer-man that 
Jim Bowles did n’t want it ; that he might have his ways, 
as we all have, being the way we are made, but Jim was 
not the man to lay out to rob his wife ; and since he has 
been with you there isn’t a nicer man living than Jim 
Bowles. I told him that.” 

Persis privately considered that Serena was no doubt 
more vigorous in regard to Jim Bowles’ virtues for hav- 
ing the assurance that the twenty-five hundred dollars 
was safe from him. 


221 


“AND SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 

*‘That is grand news, Serena,” said Persis. “lam 
delighted with it. Twenty-five hundred dollars is not 
a large fortune, but it will secure comfort to your old 
age.” 

“ Dear knows, I can't see what I shall do with it ! ” 
said Serena. 

“You are not required to do anything with it to- 
day,” said Persis. “You have plenty of time to meditate. 
Except for this knowledge of possession you are in just 
the same position that you were yesterday. ” 

“That's so!” cried Serena, looking much relieved, 
“and my work is here just the same ; and I 'm bound to 
do it, just the same as ever ! ” 

She poked the fire with great energy, sprinkled some 
water on the rolls of clothes, arranged her ironing board, 
and having tested one of the irons with the tip of her 
fore-finger, and found it not hot enough, she put her 
hands on her hips and addressed herself to Persis. 

“Why do you suppose I got all that money. Miss 
Thrale?” 

“Because the Lord wished you to have it, I suppose. 
Such a bequest is not an ordinary incident, and Mrs. 
Bingham might easily have left this legacy somewhere 
else. I think, Serena, that our heavenly Father is like 
our earthly parents, in delighting to see his children happy 
and in readiness to give them indulgences when he sees 
it will not injure them. He perhaps sees that you can 
be indulged without any spiritual harm, or he may have 
in this legacy some new lesson to teach you.” 

“What do you suppose it would be right for me to 


222 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


do with it ? What have I a right to do with it ? ” urged 
Serena. 

“Anything which you like, I think, Serena. You 
are not likely to set up a rum-shop or a gambling-table ! 
Perhaps you have had some plan, or dream, or hope, that 
you have long wished to fulfil, and now the Lord gives 
you opportunity. If a child has longed for a doll, and 
the mother gives her unexpectedly its price, no doubt she 
is meant to buy the doll. Buy your doll, Serena. ” 

As Persis went on her morning rounds she smiled 
to herself over Serena’s excitement about her twenty- 
five hundred dollars. 

“It is not likely to do Serena any harm,” she said to 
Cousin Rebecca that evening. ‘ ‘ Serena is level-headed 
and she has sound Christian principle. She is so accus- 
tomed to watching for the guiding of God’s hand that she 
will not go far astray from what is really best for her. Jim 
is the one to be damaged. He will think himself nearly 
a millionaire, and very likely refuse any honest labor. ” 

“Jim has done wonderfully well for us,” said Miss 
Susan. 

“ So he has, ” said Miss Rebecca grimly. ‘ ‘ He likes to 
ride in the elevator ; it is a ceaseless delight to him. The 
work he does here gives him plenty of time to sit down. 
Distributing the hods of coal and keeping the accounts 
for each one of the tenants’ rooms, and finally making it 
out, gives him a fine feeling of importance. For the rest, 
cleaning the sidewalk and door-steps, washing a few win- 
dows, going errands, running a furnace and keeping the 
cellar and laundry clean make just about a half-day’s 


“AND SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 223 

work each day. Jim spreads it out over the whole day, 
and likes it first-rate. However, I suppose a notice to 
quit will be in order. ” 

They saw nothing of Serena for some days : then she 
came in looking joyful, excited, hesitant, anxious — in a 
very tumult of conflicting feelings. 

“Miss Thrale ! Where do you think I \e been ! ” 

“I’m sure I cannot guess, Serena. ” 

“ I Ve been on the cars, forty-five miles ! ” 

“Where.?” 

“Back to where I was born and brought up. Miss! 
I felt fairly pulled there. I found the same little church 
I used to go to, and the river is the same, and the popple 
trees all along it in a row I I found two old people that 
were young married folks when I was a slip of a girl ; and 
there are two or three of the ones I used to go to school 
with there yet. Sara Jenks’ man has got rich, and gone 
to Legislature, and she has a fine big house ; and Ann 
Kent is well to do, and Lizzie W’eeks is a widow and 
poor. Dear knows, how queer it seemed to see them all I 
There ’s a new school-house, and there ’s a rail-road three 
miles off, and I sat down under the bombergilear trees 
that used to be by my father’s house, though the house 
is n’t there : it was pulled down ten years ago 1 But oh, 
the air seemed so sweet there. Miss Thrale, and the sky 
so blue, and the grass soft and green beyond anything, 
and there were blue flags by the brook, and buttercups 
all along the roadside. There was the little low Davis 
house, with laylocks and snowballs blooming by the door, 
same as ever ! Miss Thrale, that Davis house — it’s a bit 


224 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


of an old thing of four rooms, but it is sound, standing 
in half-an-acre of garden — is for sale for five hundred dol- 
lars ! Tears to me I must buy it and Jim and I must go 
there and live ! What do you think ? ’’ 

“Tell me more about it, Serena.” 

“You see. Miss, there ’d be the garden, where we could 
raise about all we ’d use. We could keep a cow, and 
chickens, and a pig or two ; so there ’d be eggs, milk, 
butter, fowls and a pig to sell. Jim could take care of 
the garden and the pigs, and I could do a little nursing 
or laundry, or sewing for the neighbors, and the two 
thousand dollars would bring us a hundred and forty dol- 
lars a year. It does seem as if it would be like heaven to 
get into the quiet country, and go to the same little 
church and Sunday-school I did when I was small ; and 
evenings Jim and I could walk under the popple trees, or 
sit under the bombergilears, same as we used to do ! 
Jim is fairly wild to do it. Miss Persis, do you think it 
would be right t Do you think we ought to do it t Do 
you suppose the Lord means us to ? ” 

. “I cannot see that it would be wrong, at all, Serena. 
I am sure you have every right to do it. Possibly this 
money was given to you for this very purpose. It may 
be, however, that you would not find it all you expect, 
and you might be unhappy. Still, in that case, you 
could come back. The investment of five hundred is not 
very heavy. No doubt you could sell again for that 
price. ” 

“I’d never want to. Miss ! ” cried Serena rapturously. 
“If I could once own some ground, could feel that my 


“AND SERENA SAW A GREAT LIGHT.” 225 

place was my own, could step out of my door on green 
grass, and bleach my clothes on soft sod as I did long 
ago, oh, I ’d never want to leave it ! There ’s two apple- 
trees and a cherry nigh the back of the house ; and a row 
of currant bushes. I could have a hive of bees ! Oh ! 
how I love to hear bees hum about the door. The man 
that lives there has the garden all made for this spring, 
and he wants to sell out, cash down, and move out West 
to his son. I Ve thought it all out, Miss Thrale. I have 
furniture enough to do, and Jim and I, we Ve saved up 
a little since you came here, enough to move, and to buy 
the cow and pigs and chickens. I ’ve thought of it all !” 

“You seem to have planned it all out,” said Miss 
Rebecca. 

“I believe it is just the thing for you, Serena,” said 
Miss Susan. “This has been your hope, your plan, that 
you never expected to realize. Now it has come, and 
you will be right happy. It was so with us : we had 
planned for just what we are doing now, never expecting 
it, and we have been just as happy as we expected to 
be.” 

“Yes,” said Serena, “my mind’s made up. We’ll 
buy that little place, and move next week. We ’ll miss 
you all a sight, but maybe you ’ll come and see how well 
we are fixed. And you ’ll let Tommy and Dorry and 
Dora come too.” 

“It is not Serena that I doubt about, it is Jim,” said 
Persis, after Serena had gone away, looking as happy as 
possible. ‘‘Jim will promise anything in the glamour 
of change ; but he will not be out there long before he 

15 


N«w Samaritan. 


226 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


finds himself too feeble to work, and will leave cow, pigs 
and garden to Serena ; or wish to take the interest on 
the two thousand to hire a man to do his work for him. ” 
“Yes,” said Miss Rebecca, turning the heel of a 
stocking that she was knitting for Dora, “Jim will soon 
find that riding up and down in the elevator suits him 
better than picking potato bugs, or weeding onions, or 
hoeing corn.” 

“Mrs. Hook told me to-day that her second boy 
was out of work ; the firm he was with have closed busi- 
ness. I can take him in Jim’s place until he finds some- 
thing better, ” said Persis ; “his mother will be glad 
enough to have him busy.” 

“Jonathan Tull came in here, while you were out, to 
say he had got a foreman’s place in the new piano fac- 
tory, and they could move into a little house with a 
good yard just outside of town,” said Miss Susan. “ I 
was so glad to hear it. With four children they ought to 
get out of these crowded streets. ” 

“Yes, that is great good fortune for the Tulls ; and 
they deserve it. ” 


ENDURANCE. 


227 


CHAPTER XVII. 

ENDURANCE. 

“ Mine was no light -winged fantasy, 

Gnat-passion of a summer’s day ; 

I worked not in the common way.” 

‘^Ten years, my Persis, ten years of work at Gardner 
Street,” said Mrs. Inskip. “When missionaries go 
abroad they are expected to come home at the end of 
ten years, for a rest. That is supposed to be needful to 
maintain their efficiency. I think it is time you took a 
year off.” 

“Not a year,” said Persis. “I could not spare that, 
and I do not need it. Remember, I have refreshed mind 
and body with a yearly vacation. Quebec, Niagara, 
Saratoga, the seaside, the Adirondacks, the White 
Mountains, have all seen me since I began this life. I 
have not neglected self-care. And do you know that I 
have come home from every summer vacation with new 
friends and helpers stirred up for this work, or kindred 
work ? Although I do not need a year I have been think- 
ing of taking a longer vacation than usual ; perhaps six 
months. ” 

“How glad I am to find you in such a frame of 
mind,” cried Mrs. Inskip joyfully, “for Mr. Inskip and 
I have been plotting to carry you off for a tour. ” 

“To Europe .?” asked Persis. “ My heart has been 
turning to the ways I travelled long ago. ” 


228 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“ Not to Europe. We think better than that. What 
do you say to a pleasant little party for the Northwest : 
Portland, Alaska, down to California, camping in the 
mountains, the Yellowstone Park, tenting among the 
Rockies, and so back by Thanksgiving, after a six months’ 
wandering ?” 

“I think well of it,” said Persis. “I should like it 
of all things.” 

“ How much breath I am saved by your reasonable- 
ness,” said Mrs. Inskip. “I expected to have all my 
powers of persuasion put in requisition. We should 
like to start in a week. Could you ?” 

“Yes, indeed. I have been considering about a long 
absence. I thought it would revive my energies and give 
freshness to my methods. Then, too, I want to see how 
all my work will fare in other hands. I shall perhaps 
find that I am not as indispensable as I think. The 
workman passes away, the work moves on. My people 
will learn to stand alone while I am gone. Perhaps they 
have been too long in leading-strings.” 

“What will you do with Dorry and Tommy?” 

“Their school will close in three weeks after we 
leave, and I had arranged for them to go for the three 
months’ vacation to stay with Serena. She moved back 
to the popple and bombergilear trees yesterday. Good 
soul ! She wanted to take the boys for nothing. She said 
she wished to do something for the Lord. I told her to 
find some other way, for I should furnish one of the little 
upper rooms for the boys and pay at least what their 
board would cost. I am intending to make a rule that 


ENDURANCE. 229 

they shall work one hour and a half each day. That will 
be good for them and sweeten all their play. ” 

“Jim Bowles will like that/' laughed Mrs. Inskip; 
“and I’ll warrant you he’ll find a hundred crafty dodges 
to get nearly all his work done by them. Jim is smart 
in nothing but saving himself trouble. ” 

“Serena will see that the boys are fairly treated. 
They will come home two months before we do, but 
Katherine and my cousins can look after them. ’’ 

“Does Miss Rebecca tolerate them?” 

“I believe she has a sneaking affection for them 
which she does not like to exhibit. The fact is, just as 
soon as Cousin Rebecca found that she could not in- 
terfere with the affairs of every one, and administer 
all lives and consciences to suit herself, but must allow 
each person individual liberty, she has settled down to be 
very agreeable. Moreover, she is one of the best women 
I know ; not as saintly as Cousin Susan, but nobly prac- 
tical.” 

‘ ‘Arrange to go with your mind free of care, especially 
about your nursing work,” said Mrs. Inskip. 

“I have Mrs. Moss so well trained in this that she 
will get on nicely, with the supervision of Katherine 
Clarke, Cousin Rebecca, and Mr. Cooper and Harriet. 
I think they could even see an epidemic through. How- 
ever, we do not have epidemics in our neighborhood 
since we studied sanitation and the laws of health. Infant 
mortality is reduced about one-half, owing to healthier 
mothers, cleaner homes and better care and feeding. 
Just now we have a new treasure in the man at the dis- 


230 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


pensary. He is an elderly man, a Christian, sympathetic, 
and his wife was for years a hospital nurse. You have 
no idea how much good they are doing in a quiet way. ” 

In spite of all these arrangements for the good of her 
district during her absence there was general gloom in 
all that precinct when the news spread that Miss Thrale 
was going on a journey, to remain until winter snows be- 
gan to fly. What should they do without her.? Her 
smiles as she went and came, her cheery words, her 
prompt suggestions, her quick wit in emergencies, had 
brightened and strengthened all their lives. They felt as 
if sunshine and summer were going out with her. All 
along Webster, Ramsay, Gardner and Dorsey Streets, and 
down into the unsavory purlieus of Sodom and Gomor- 
rah, now somewhat less unsavory and less frequently 
known so opprobriously, went the news, and there was 
mourning. 

When the day came for Persis to go, and the carriage 
was at the door, her trunk strapped on, the sidewalk was 
lined for some distance with friends and pensioners. 

Good-by, dear lady,” cried an old woman. “I’m 
fearing I ’ll not be here when you come back, and how 
can I die without a word from you .?” “Oh, bella signo- 
rina,” said a little Italian accordion-player, “grazie, 
grazie!” and, pointing to her feet, she added, “freddo, 
freddo ! scarpe e calze for one winter’s day Persis had 
brought her into the house, warmed and fed her, and 
given her shoes and stockings. A flower-seller pressed 
near with a cluster of violets as a parting gift ; little chil- 
dren threw kisses. The whole Hook contingent was out 


ENDURANCE. 


231 


in full force, Mrs. Hook, stout and comfortable, at the 
head of her band. “Good-by, good-by !" “ Come back 
soon.” “Why do you go.?” “We shall miss you so.” 
“ Half the world will seem to be gone.” These people, 
who had not been cultivated into self-repression, and 
whose feelings gushed forth with the spontaneity of child- 
hood, burst into loud weeping as Persis waved her hand 
in farewell. 

She had known their souls in adversity ; she had been 
in living, sympathetic touch with their poor joys and 
their heavy woes. Among them, bearing their burdens, 
making part of their lives, one of themselves in the kin- 
ship of sympathy — this had been one side of their joint 
experiences. But hers had been a two-phased existence. 
She had stood in the brightness of ease and comfort, and 
had reflected it upon them. She had seen wider hori- 
zons, and had helped their eyes to the vision. She had 
brought friends, life, help, beauty, good cheer from the 
more fortunate side of existence, and had endowed them 
with some of these rich heritages. They lost in Persis a 
sister and benefactor. ‘ ‘ What will ye see in the Shula- 
mite? As it were the company of two armies.” 

The wheels of Persis Thrale’s carriage rolled away from 
this mourning company, and the days and weeks of the 
summer also rolled away, finding the mourners becom- 
ing accustomed to their bereavement. Humanity has 
wonderful power of self-adjustment. There came also a 
new glory and joy to these people, in the shape of letters 
from Persis, now to one now to another. Generally this 
was an entirely new experience — the recipients never 


232 A NEW SAMARITAN. 

before had a letter. Then the letter was carried from 
tenement to tenement, and read and commented on by 
one or two, or by a whole group, as the case might be, 
and grew soiled and thin, and ragged at edges and creas- 
es, from much folding and unfolding. The arrival of a 
letter might have been divined by certain signs which 
followed it : the good dame so honored held her head a 
little higher, there was something slightly supercilious in 
her eyebrows ; her shoes were promptly tied up, and her 
hair received an extra brushing. Her apron was turned, 
or exchanged for a clean one ; if there was a rent in 
her gown pinned up, a needle and thread were called 
into service ; the lady’s English became for a few days 
markedly better, and the tones of her voice were on the 
middle instead of the head register, and for at least half 
a day she became scrupulous as to the manners of her 
children. 

At last Trinka, Katherine and Mrs. Moss carried 
the news to every dwelling in the neighborhood that Per- 
sis would be at home on Thanksgiving Day, and would 
be glad to receive calls from all her friends : and by way 
of Mrs. Massey it became known that there would be con- 
tinuous tea and toast, sandwiches and doughnuts, from 
morning until bed-time, and that dinners were to be sent 
out to all on the sick list. 

That was a high day and a holiday such as had nev- 
er before been known in the vicinity of Gardner Street. 
Every one who called saw and talked with the “beloved 
Persis,” had plenty to eat and drink, and on leaving re- 
ceived from the hand of Katherine Clarke a souvenir. 


ENDURANCE. 


233 


There were two barrels of these souvenirs standing in the 
hall : simple little things, shells — pictures, cups, plates, 
needle-books furnished, little statuettes — some of the 
thousand and one knick-knacks that serve to mark some 
pleasant reminiscence. Katherine dealt out one to each 
impartially; and when the notable day was over, and Mr. 
Inskip saw the bills, he remarked to Persis with great 
vigor that ‘ if she spent as much as that every day she 
would arrive at the almshouse. ’ 

*‘But I don’t spend as much every day,” said Persis. 

Work was resumed and went on as if there had been 
no break of absence. New people moved into the Gard- 
ner Street quarter, and old settlers there moved away, but 
Persis had the pleasure of seeing that her people were 
usually on the up grade, and when they went away it 
was to get better quarters — not to relapse into the slums. 

If those who are amply able to accomplish such work 
as Persis Thrale and her friends had undertaken would 
but awake to their responsibility and do the work, there 
would be no slums. That old question, asked first of 
Cain, has not slept in silence all these ages. Against how 
many of the forgetful ones of the earth has it been writ- 
ten, “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me 
from the ground ! ” 

The winter passed, and warm April airs breathed 
across the world. Persis sat by her open window read- 
ing. Glancing up she saw Serena and Jim Bowles ap- 
proaching the steps. 

“Walk in, Serena,” she called. “ Have you come to 
town for a trip ? ” 


234 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“No, Miss,” replied Serena, looking sedulously at the 
corner of her shawl, while Jim became deeply interested 
in the toe of his right boot ; “ no ; if you please, we have 
come to stay. ” 

“To stay! Where.?” 

“At the old place. Miss. We moved in yesterday, 
and are settled just as we were before. The rooms hap- 
pened to be vacant.” 

“Sit down, Serena, and kt me hear all about it. Sit 
down, Jim.” 

But Jim had already drifted off to the elevator, 
shouldered out the Hook lad, and was triumphantly 
taking the Picot detachment up. 

Serena told her story in a few words. “ It was no use, 
Miss ; nothing was the same. The friends were not the 
same, the birds did not sing the same, the flowers were 
not as sweet, it was chilly or dusty under the bombergil- 
ear trees, the popples did not give so much shadow : the 
food did not taste as it used to taste ; the nights were so 
deadly still we could not sleep. Nothing was the same, 
perhaps because we were not the same ourselves.” 

“ ‘We change our skies, but not ourselves, who go 
across the sea, ’ ” said Persis meditatively. Serena looked 
blank. 

“Tell me all about it,” said Persis. 

“There isn’t much to tell,” said Serena. “ Nothing 
happened. When we first went there, in the spring, the 
garden was in nice order, the weather was lovely. I was 
just delighted to have a whole house of my own, if it was 
only four rooms, and I worked from morning till night 


ENDURANCE. 


235 


making everything as pretty as I could. Jim felt as if the 
acre was a whole farm, and he gardened and tended to 
the cow and pig wonderful — yes, wonderful for Jim ; be- 
cause he do n't take to things, not being made that way. 
At first I did n't notice that nobody had come to see us 
except Lizzie Weeks that used to be. She 's a widow now, 
and keeps house for Farmer Glass, new folks there. Liz- 
zie did n't live nearest, but she came. Poor Lizzie ! She 's 
the complaining kind, and made me feel real down-heart- 
ed whenever she dropped in. After a while, as I did n't 
want to be stiff, and had n't much to do, I went to 
see old Mr. and Mrs. Bent ; but they 'd forgotten all 
about me, and when I did bring myself to mind they 
did n't seem to care. The Woodses remembered us, and 
asked us to come often ; they never get out, being both 
lame. Their son’s wife keeps the house, and being a bit 
of a high-flyer, when she found out I 'd taken in washing 
she made it clear I was n’t the sort she cared about. Then 
I called on Sara Jenks. Sara has come to be pretty toney 
since her man went into Legislature. We used to go to 
school together, but I felt hurt, she acted so toploftical to 
me. That shows. Miss Persis, that I 've more pride in 
my heart than I ought to have, and am not of the 
‘ blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. ' 
I told Sara Jenks I laid out to do fine laundry if I could 
get it, or nursing, or sewing. She said her daughters 
had a good bit of summer company, and very likely 
there ’d be some dresses to do up for them. During the 
summer I did do up a dozen, and I'm sure I made 
the price as low as I could, and they found fault, and 


236 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


said they did n’t look to pay city prices. Ann Kent was 
another of the old-time ones, and she was pleasant to 
me, and promised me the washing for her summer 
boarders — but Ann is n’t what you may call sociable. 
Before we had time to be lonesome the little boys came, 
and they kept us company. They did a good bit of 
work, and Jim liked that ; he could sit round under the 
apple-tree and look on. The boys fed the pigs and the 
cow and chickens. They found it good fun and wanted 
to do it. By the time they went away Jim Bowles was 
tired of it all. He could n’t bear to work in the garden, 
and he hated to feed things. You see, here he ’d been 
all the time in your house, where there is n’t any weather, 
and now no kind of weather suits Jim — warm is too hot, 
and cold freezes him, and dry chokes him, and wet 
bothers him — and what can you do in the country with a 
man that is set against any kind of weather ? It is all 
weather there. Jim said it hurt his back to dig potatoes 
and turnips, and he could n’t bear to shell beans out dry, 
and it was more than the whole thing was worth to get 
him to tidy up that garden right for winter. Jim was 
fearful lonesome. You know in your house here he has 
people to see and speak to every half hour in the day. 
He pined after Mrs. Massey’s cooking, because out there 
we could n’t get fresh meat every day, and of course I 
could n’t afford to have dessert every day ; we had to 
live close. But Jim does dote on a dessert ; he is made 
that way. So winter came, and we were rained in and 
snowed in, and there was only church every other Sun- 
day, a mile off, and bad walking ; and Jim Bowles and I 


ENDURANCE. 


237 


are used to go to church twice a day. It was powerful 
lonesome, Miss Persis, and very little to do, and nobody 
to see, and for twenty years and more we Ve lived with 
lots of neighbors in the house to pass the time of day 
with every half hour. Round here we knew folks, and 
could do for them, and they seemed to need us and we 
needed them. When winter came, why, you ’ve no idea 
how bare those popples and bombergilears looked ! When 
I ’d been remembering them here at my work I ’peared 
to see them all the time green and fresh, and the fields 
all grass, with buttercups glinting gold, and butterflies 
swinging over them. But there the fields were all bare 
and brown so heart-sickening long, and the buttercups 
only lasted about two weeks, and the butterflies soon 
went away. Oh, Miss Thrale, it is singular how very 
different you think of things from what things are !” 

“ ‘ Vain, very vain, my weary search to find 
That bliss which only centers in the mind ; 

How small, of all that human hearts endure, 

That part which laws can make or kings can cure ! 

Still to ourselves in every place consigned, 

Our own felicity we make or find.’ ” 

Persis quoted half to herself, and smiling at Serena’s 
experiences. 

“I do not know what the poetry means. Miss,” said 
Serena ; “but I do know we could n’t either of us stand 
it any longer. Jim Bowles said to me, ‘ Serena, I have 
to go back and see to Miss Thrale’s coal, and run that 
elevator; I know she needs me. I shouldn’t ought 
ever to have left her. I ’ll go back, if I have to work 
merely for my bread. ’ ” 


238 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Of course Jim and I couldn't part company after all 
the long years we Ve been married, and Jim is a very 
good, quiet, kind, well-meaning man. So I sat down 
and wrote to our old landlord, did he have rooms, and 
he wrote back the very rooms we had so long would be 
ready to rent to us this week and he asked for no bet- 
ter tenants. Then, too, I wrote to some of my ladies, if 
they were in need of my work, and four or five of them 
said they would be glad enough to have me do for them 
as before. So, Miss Persis, we just sent all our goods, 
and few they are, in here, and we locked up the house, 
and there it is. Mr. Kent said he 'd pay the taxes for 
the use of the garden and pasture field, and maybe we 
can sell it pretty soon. I reckon, to stay in the city and 
do my work and help my poor neighbors is what the 
Lord means me to do. Do n’t you. Miss ?” 

“It seems so,” said Persis. “Perhaps you would 
like your place just for a short vacation in summer.” 

“So I would. Jim Bowles says he never wants to 
set eyes on it again ; but I ’d like it for a time in sum- 
mer. Of course, I can’t afford such style as that. Miss 
Persis, so I must sell it if I can.” 

“Dorry and Tommy thought it lovely,” said Persis. 
“I think I will go out there and look at it, and perhaps 
I will buy it to keep as a summer home for feeble chil- 
dren. I might furnish it, and send some little folks out 
for a month at a time. How many could you take care 
of out there, Serena 

“ Half-a-dozen,” said Serena eagerly. 

“Would you like to be there for June, July, August 


ENDURANCE. 


239 


and September, taking care of such children as I should 
send out ? I would see that you had some large enough 
to help you do the work. For instance, Tommy and 
Dorry, who will be better for a country month, although 
they are strong and hearty, could be there one month 
with four small ones ; and then the next month two 
girls of eight and ten, with four little ones, and so on. 
We could give about twenty-five children a country 
month that way. Are you equal to it ?” 

“I think it would be lovely,'’ said Serena. 

“We will arrange a bill of fare, healthful and plain. 
A plenty of bread and milk, bread and soup, mush and 
molasses, fruit and potatoes. You must let the children 
wait on themselves, teach them to help you and each 
other, and I think you will enjoy it rather than find 
it burdensome. I was wishing for just such an oppor- 
tunity when you came in. Thanks to Mr. Inskip, I 
have some more income to spend, and I want to lay it 
out in a healthful building up of the rising generation. 
Money spent on children brings good interest. I will 
go and see your place to-morrow, Serena. ” 

“Thank you. Miss. Oh, thank you ten thousand^ 
times ! What about Jim, Miss ?” 

“He can settle right back in his old place. I have 
found work for Mrs. Hook's son with Jonathan Tull in 
the factory, and I do n't want him to waste any more 
time running an elevator." 

“Jim Bowles thinks there's nothing like it," said 
Serena taking leave. 

Presently Miss Rebecca came in. 


240 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Persis, that Jim Bowles is acting like a lunatic, he 
is so glad to be back. He is riding up and down, skip- 
ping and dancing, and throwing up his hat. I did not 
know that a grown-up person could be so silly.” 

“Cousin Rebecca,” said Persis, “I am convinced 
that it is not so much years as education that ‘grows 
people up.’ A cultivated child will be more reticent 
and dignified than an ignorant man. Centuries ago all 
the world was in a large degree childish, station and 
grey hair making very little difference. Cousin Rebecca, 
let me beg you to take a trip with me to the country 
to-morrow and help me plan a new enterprise. ” 

“As soon as I heard you had more income I looked 
for new work,” said Cousin Rebecca. 


THE ACCEPTED LOT. 


241 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE ACCEPTED LOT. 

“ There from the music round about me stealing 
I fain would learn the new and holy song, 

And find at last, beneath thy trees of healing, 

The life for which I long.” 

Persis Thrale, Miss Rebecca and Miss Susan, Kath- 
erine and Annie Clarke, Harriet and Mr. Cooper, some 
of the Alma House Club, and several of the Brother’s 
Club, were gathered together that evening. Serena had 
gone home fully satisfied, and Jim Bowles was investi- 
gating the coal cellar and running the elevator with great 
diligence. Persis detailed the case of Serena and her 
husband to her gathered friends, and they discussed it 
philosophically in its bearings on humanity’s ideals. 
Then Persis explained her plan for children s vacations, 
and the entire company with great enthusiasm expounded 
the most advanced views as to food, clothing, exercise — 
physical culture generally. 

“As soon as I heard that Persis’ income was increased 
by a few hundreds,” said Cousin Rebecca, “I knew 
that she would devise some new method for giving it 
away. ” 

‘ ‘ What is the measure of giving ?” asked Miss Susan. 

“The needs of our neighbor,” replied one of the 
Alma Club. “It is written, ‘if a brother or a sister 

New Samaritan. 1 6 


242 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


among you be naked and destitute of daily food, and ye 
say unto him — ’ etc. ” 

“Fm afraid we should find more needy than worthy,'' 
said a gentleman of the Brother’s Club, fresh from his 
college and studies in political economy. 

“If worth is to be the measure of our receiving,” 
said Harriet, “I fear many of us will be greatly strait- 
ened.” 

“Goldsmith’s model village-preacher,” said Mr. 
Cooper, 

“ quite forgot their vices in their woe; 

Careless their merits or their faults to scan, 

His pity gave ere charity began. 

Thus to relieve the wretched was his pride, 

And even his failings leaned to virtue’s side.” 

‘ ‘ Our ability is the proper measure of our giving, ” 
said Miss Rebecca, with authority. “The Scripture 
for that is ‘she hath done what she could.’” 

“It is possible that with plenty of ability we might 
lack opportunity,” said Katherine. “We are only re- 
quired to do good to all men ‘ as ye have opportunity. ' ” 

But here Katherine drew upon herself the fire of all 
the company. ‘ ‘ Opportunity ! Whoever lacks oppor- 
tunity is wilfully blind and deaf! The world is full 
of opportunities, of terrible needs, and only intense self- 
ishness can say that an opportunity is lacking. ‘Go 
out into the highways and hedges 1’ ” 

“Our conscience is our measure,” said one of the 
Alma girls. “ Conscience is bestowed upon us for our 
monitor and guide in all things ; why not in our giv- 
ing r 


THE ACCEPTED LOT. 


243 


‘ ‘ Conscience is not always in a normal condition, ” 
said Mr. Cooper. In many people it is half dead, or 
more than half asleep. If one has been brought up apart 
from a knowledge of the needs and sufferings of man- 
kind, if one has been cradled in selfishness, one may ab- 
solutely have no conscience about supplying the necessi- 
ties of others. Doubtless the Queen of France was 
sincere when she said that she ‘ should suppose people 
would rather eat bread and cheese than die of starva- 
tion.”' 

‘‘God's providence should be our measure," said a 
young theologue. “God's providence in bestowing 
upon us the means to give. ‘ Let every one lay by him in 
store as God hath prospered him. ’ " 

‘ ‘ Those who make a business of giving, " said Annie 
Clarke, ‘ ‘ find so much delight in it that it becomes 
second nature to them ; they give naturally and royally, 
as the sun pours forth light and heat. They find so 
much happiness in benevolence that to be deprived of 
opportunity to give would be to lose a chief joy." She 
glanced gratefully towards Persis as she spoke. 

“ With them, then," said Persis, quite unconscious of 
any personal application, “giving is only a highly refined 
form of selfishness. There is no real virtue in it. " 

“Be careful there," said Harriet. “Do you not 
suppose that God himself takes delight in giving, and 
that he pours forth benevolence as the necessary outgo of 
his generous nature ?'* 

“We have all missed the true statement of what 
should be the measure of giving," said Persis. “It can 


244 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


be no other than the glory of God. ^ Honor the Lord 
with thy substance/ ‘ IMan's chief end is to glorify God/ 

‘ Whatsoever ye do, do it all to the glory of God. ' That 
thought of God’s glory is the salt upon the sacrifice. 

‘ Every sacrifice shall be salted with salt. ’ I remember 
one day speaking with Dr. Bond about giving, and he 
said to me that a great hindrance in benevolent work was 
that so many people waited for the call of extraordinary 
situations and opportunities, instead of quietly taking up 
the small possibilities of every day to serve God in them. 
A city swept by fire, a county inundated, a section rav- 
aged by an epidemic, will call forth widespread generos- 
ity, sympathy, heroic self-sacrifice. The little daily de- 
mands, the poverty and discouragement ever before our 
eyes, cease to move us, because we are habituated to 
them, and there is no magnetic wave of excitement and 
popular lavishing to carry us out of our indifference. ” 

‘‘Tell me. Miss Thrale,” said the theologue : “how 
many people do you think could or should do the work 
that you are doing ? Is such work as yours the right of 
all 

“I felt called to it, found I could do it, and have 
never thought of abandoning it,” said Persis. “Any 
one else so called of God would, I think, feel in that way 
about the work. To try to do other work than that to 
which God has adapted us is to misuse God’s tools and 
have work ill done.” 

“Well !” cried one of the Alma Club with great en- 
ergy, “ to me the thought of the misery, poverty, suffer- 
ing, despair, vice, in the world is perfectly dreadful ! I 


THE ACCEPTED LOT. 


245 


think my chief reason for wanting to get to heaven is be- 
cause there will there be no suffering or sorrow, and I 
am sure that there I shall be delivered from knowing 
that there is any, anywhere else. If not, how could I be 
happy ? If I stay down here at our club the realization 
of the wretchedness in the world makes me nearly sick. 
If I abandon the club and stay at home, then I hear the 
‘wailing of the children,' and I cannot be at rest." 

“You are too sensitive; it is a pity you ever were 
drawn into charity life," said the theologue, looking at 
the girl with great admriation. 

Persis also fixed her eyes meditatively upon her. In 
her she seemed to see a resurrection of her former self 
Once she had felt in that way exactly : drawn to the res- 
cue of distress, yet shrinking from it in a sensitive agony. 
Wherein lay the change ? Merely in having shaken her- 
self free of self She had become absorbed into the life of 
others, so that she no longer thought what effect their 
disasters produced upon her, but only of how they might 
be lightened for them. 

“I have my doubts," said the theologue, “ whether it 
is really necessary for any one to come and live among 
the needy classes, as Miss Thrale and some of the rest 
of you are doing. I really think the work could be as 
well done by all of you living in your own natural quar- 
ters and coming down here to look after things. I am 
open to conviction, and I came to spend a month at the 
Brother’s Club to be convinced. " 

‘ ‘ Perhaps a month is not giving yourself time enough, " 
said Mr. Cooper. 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


246 

The company rose to go. It was ten o’clock. The 
theologue had promised to wait at Gardner Street until a 
friend came for him. He repented of his promise, for his 
friend was late, and he wished to walk home with the 
young lady of the Alma Club. The others went away ; 
he was left alone with Persis. His disappointment vexed 
him. He was silent and Persis was paying no attention to 
him. She was standing on the front step looking up and 
down the street. It was an unusually warm evening ; 
the women of the neighborhood had been sitting on their 
door-steps talking and resting. Many of them had their 
babies lying asleep across their knees. One by one they 
were retreating to their rooms. Persis thought of the 
change in the neighborhood during the last ten years : 
these women were so much more orderly, quiet, friendly 
towards each other, neater in dress, more careful of their 
duties to their children. Persis thought with a smile of 
four several grog-shops which she had lived out of that 
neighborhood. They had faded away for want of sup- 
port. Would it have been as well if she had remained 
‘ ‘ up town ” and come down here occasionally ? 

The discontented theologue, waxing lonesome, came 
out to the step beside her. Persis did not speak to him, 
she was listening. Her quick ear, accustomed to divide 
the night sounds about her home, detected far off the 
sharp sound of a young girl crying, angrily, hopelessly, 
in a self-despairing abandonment of woe. She bent for- 
ward and her eyes searched the distance. The moon 
shone full in mid-heaven ; the lamps were lit. Far up at 
the end of the street a little dark group detached itself 


THE ACCEPTED LOT. 247 

from the shadow of the tall houses. Then from this 
shifting group one fragment of darkness divided, and 
grew larger, coming down toward Gardner Street, and the 
remainder of the moving bulk parted and melted away, 
received into houses or other streets, and the shrill crying 
grew shriller as the slim dark form came on, and then all 
at once it disappeared. Persis promptly stepped to the 
sidewalk and went swiftly toward the point of disappear- 
ance. She never thought of waiting or of escort, forgot 
entirely the theologue ; here was her home, her accus- 
tomed place, her work ; these streets were as familiar as 
the walks of a garden to her. Erect, strong, fearless, she 
moved on her way. The theologue pursued her — the fact 
that she was a woman made her methods seem to him 
dangerous, and he questioned their necessity. His own 
part was plain : to follow for her protection. He had 
seen and heard what Persis had, but to him it meant lit- 
tle, and he would have lost himself in the maze of nar- 
row streets and the treacherous night lights. Persis, un- 
wavering, pressed on, turned where the weeping shadow 
had lost itself, passed under an archway and was where 
four ways met under one flaring light. There was the 
jutting corner of a building, and against it shrank a slim 
dark figure with a white face and clasped hands, uncer- 
tain ; two ways were before her. One led to the black 
sullen roll of the river, the other took hold on death and 
its guests were in the depths of hell. Persis, calm and 
direct, went to this sobbing shadow and put her arm 
around her. 

‘ ‘ Come, my child, it is late for you to be out, and 


248 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


you do not know where you are going. I have a place 
for you. Come, my little sister. ” 

The girl drew away. ‘ ‘ Who are you ? ” she cried. 

‘ ‘ Where are you going ? ” 

‘‘I am Persis Thrale, and I am going home. And 
you are going with me to the corner of Gardner Street. ” 

The girl yielded at once. She had heard that name 
as of a haven of refuge and a tower of strength. Still 
with her arm around the girl, and walking slowly, Persis 
retraced her steps, and the theologue followed. 

“Where were you going, child?” asked Persis’ voice, 
full, low, clear, harmonious in the silent night. 

“ To the river, I think,” said the girl, with a sob. 

“And why to the river? ” 

“Because there was no place else.” 

“God has made a place. Tell me all about your 
trouble. ” 

They moved slowly, for the excited girl trembled and 
panted so that she could scarcely walk, even with the 
support of Persis’ arm. 

“My aunt brought me up,” she said, “and I’ve 
sewed at cheap wrappers and aprons since I was fourteen. 
There ’s so much slack time without any wages that I got 
in debt to my aunt for board. Then she died, and my 
uncle wanted to drive me out, because I was behind in 
the board, and they were a big family for two rooms. I 
got work with Brown, the sweater, and he made me buy 
a machine ; he makes all the girls buy them ; they pay a 
dollar and a half a week out of what they earn until the 
machine is paid for. I begged so hard, and some of the 







■ .. 













- ' 

y" . » 


I- 

4 -* 


(C * — ' \ 



THE ACCEPTED LOT. 


249 


neighbor women begged for me, and my uncle said if I ’d 
pay the rest of what I earned for board I might stay until 
the machine was paid for, and then pay my back debt. 
The machine is all paid for but five dollars, and two days 
days ago Brown turned me off. ” 

“What for?" 

“To get the machine, you know," said the girl 
simply. 

“Explain more. I do not quite understand." 

“It is a trick of the sweaters. They make you pay 
half your earnings a week till the machine is nearly paid 
for, and then you are discharged, for nothing at all. And 
as you can’t go on paying the machine has to be given 
up, and the sweater and the agent divide the profits. Oh, 
they do that way constantly. Indeed I was a good 
steady hand, and quiet in the work-room. You may ask 
any of the women. It was just a cruel trick to rob me. 
We girls haven’t any one to defend us, or any money to 
go to law, and so they plunder us. I dared not tell my 
uncle I was out of work, and I’ve walked these two days 
to find something to do. This morning one of the chil- 
dren told him, and he ordered me off He said he 
would n’t have me living on him. I was not his kin. But 
I went back early and went to bed with the three little 
girls I slept with. He found it out when he came home 
drunk, and he turned me out into the street. He did n’t 
let me have my little bundle, he said I owed him enough. 
Some of the women told me to go to the House of the 
Good Shepherd ; and some said, ‘ Find a policeman, and 
make him take you somewhere.’ Some said I could 


250 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


sleep a night on their floor, and some said they would do 
for me if they were n’t so mortal poor. One woman told 
me this was the way all my life would go, and the sooner 
I finished it the better. It seemed to me I must run and 
jump into the river, Miss ! What else could I do ? A 
man can lie out on the park benches, or if police finds a 
man asleep in the doorway he does n’t notice, or he says 
‘ Move on ; ’ but he ’d arrest a girl. And what name 
would I have if I ’d been arrested. Miss ? ” 

‘‘Why did you not look for house service.? ” 

“I did ; but I had n’t any recommend for such work ; 
and I did n’t know about it ; and folks would n’t take 
me.” 

‘ ‘ And so ? ” 

‘And so I was driven mad, and I was just going to 
make away with myself one way or another if you had n’t 
come up.” 

“Had you not heard of my house, and of my 
work ? ” 

“’Pears so, but I never thought it mean/ me, and none 
of the women round seemed to think it, either. Oh, 
where ’d I been now if you had n’t come after me .? ” 

Persis turned and gave one long look into the eyes of 
the young man following at her elbow. 

They had reached the door. Jim Bowles stood at 
the open door waiting for Persis’ return. She sent him 
to bring Mrs. Gayley. “Mrs. Gayley,” she said to the 
girl, “will take care of you. She will provide you with 
a warm bath, a gown, a bed, and a breakfast ; and to- 
morrow we will see about getting work for you. If you 


THE ACCEPTED LOT. 2$ I 

go away from here without work, money or friends it 
will be because you choose to do so ! ” 

‘ ‘ Oh, Miss, I could n’t do that ! I ’d do anything, 
I ’d black shoes and scour steps, to be just safe ! ” And 
suddenly the girl bent her head on Persis’ breast and re- 
newed her weeping ; but now her tears fell as a relief, 
a refreshing rain softening her heart. 

Mrs. Gayley, accustomed to calls at all hours, and all 
duties, quietly led her away. Then Persis laid her hand 
on the arm of the young theologue, and looked him steadi- 
ly in the face. “ It was not without reason that our Lord 
left his glory and came to seek the lost, and to dwell 
among those whom he would save. If we are to raise 
those who are down we must stoop. When the fold was 
full of well-cared-for sheep the shepherd did not stand at 
the gate and call the one that was lost : he went down 
into the wilderness and carried it back on his shoulder.’’ 
Then a sudden change came on her mobile face, and joy, 
superior joy, shone in her eyes. “Let me tell you that 
to-morrow Brown, the sweater, will begin to pay for his 
deeds. There is a society of women for defending work- 
ing women from just such fiends as this poor girl has 
sulfered by. One of our best lawyers gives us his time. 
This rascal shall find the screws coming down on him 
swift and tight ! But see : who would have found out 
that this girl needed help and defense if some one had 
not been down here ? ” 

There was a sound of swift steps and the long-waited- 
for friend arrived. ‘ ‘ Pembroke, do pardon me. I posi- 
tively forgot that I had promised to come here for you I ” 


252 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“It is well that you did,” said Pembroke. “ I have 
been kept after school to learn an important lesson !” 

A week later Persis Thrale’s friends were again met 
together at her house. 

“How is your young derelict.?” asked Mr. Pem- 
broke. 

“Busy and happy. She seems a nice, well-behaved 
girl. Mrs. Picot took a fancy to her, and as her last 
daughter married a month ago she offered to take this 
Bessie Jay into her room. Cousin Rebecca took her 
as one of her apprentices, and Miss Lawrence, our kin- 
dergarten teacher, gave her enough clothing for the 
present. It may be written down, ‘ One more girl 
saved !' ” 

“One more soul for your hire,” said Mr. Pembroke. 
“ Do you think you shall ever leave this work ?” 

“Never,” said Persis firmly. “It grows upon me 
daily.” 

“You do not feel that you have reached its limit?” 

“No. That flies like the horizon line as one advan- 
ces. Just now my whole heart seems drawn to that 
quarter from which this Bessie Jay came — ^Verne, Cado- 
gan and Beldon Streets. They have lain outside of my 
work so far, but now they must come into it. I have 
talked with Bessie about the locality, its needs, its evils. 
It seems as if the way must open. I am now waiting 
for my directions !” 

“Explain that a little, please. Miss Thrale,” said 
young Pembroke. 

“It is just this : when my mind is strongly turned 


THE ACCEPTED LOT. 


253 


to some needed work, when I have seen a want and felt 
drawn to supply it, I have often found that very soon 
God raised up helpers and means exactly fitted to the 
especial need. When these three — need, inclination, 
and opportunity — meet, I take it as my marching orders ; 
I have received direction, and I simply go on doing what 
my hand finds to do. I know many great and useful 
workers take a different way. They see a need to be met 
and they undertake it in faith, without helpers or means ; 
others go out to find both. People show their individ- 
uality in philanthropic work as in other things. My 
disposition is cautious. I move slowly and carefully in 
beginning. I fear failure. I need to be very sure of what 
I am doing. Once fairly begun, I have staying power. I 
keep my object well in view and refuse to be turned 
aside. The very day when I began my work here Dr. 
Bond said to me that when one heart was directed to 
any special service for Christ others were almost simul- 
taneously directed. The Master does not leave the 
toiler alone in the field.’’ 

'‘Two and two, that is both Old Testament and New 
Testament doctrine,” said Mr. Pembroke. “How long 
do you mean now to wait for help and helpers 

“I don’t know. As long as the Master sees fit. I 
feel as if I marched like the Israelites in the wilderness, 
led by a pillar of fire by night, of cloud by day.” 

“Yes, I remember,” cried Mr. Pembroke — 

“ ‘ When Israel, of the Lord beloved, 

Out from the land of bondage came. 

Her fathers* God before her moved. 

An awful Guide, in smoke and flame. 


254 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


By day along the astonished land 
The cloudy pillar glided slow ; 

By night Arabia’s crimson sand 
Returned the fiery column’s glow.” 

“It is true, Miss Thrale. I do not believe that Gods 
guiding is less real in these days.’' 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 


255 


CHAPTER XIX. 

JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 

“A little while to keep the oil from failing, 

A little while faith’s flickering lamp to trim, 

And then, the Bridegroom’s coming footsteps hailing, 

To haste to meet him with the bridal hymn ! 

“ And He who is himself the gift and giver — 

The future glory and the present smile— 

With the bright promise of the glad for ever 
Will light the shadows of the little while.” 

“Come here, Bessie Jay,” said Persis, standing one 
evening in the door of her bed-room. ‘ ‘ I want to talk 
with you about where you came from. ” 

“I don’t even like to think of it. Miss,” said Bessie, 
coming in shyly ; she considered a private talk in Miss 
Thrale s room a great honor. “ It seems — it seems — like 
it would be to think about the bad place after you got to 
heaven. ” 

“ ‘ Between these two there is a great gulf fixed,’ ” said 
Persis, “and I am sure your old neighborhood is not 
separated from us like that. If help had not come here 
to Gardner Street it was on the down grade, to become 
what Verne and Cadogan are now. If help is carried to 
Verne and Cadogan they may be put on the up grade, to 
be quiet and agreeable and decent, as Gardner Street is 
now. ” 

“Oh, do you think it. Miss? I wish it might, for 


256 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


my little cousins there are the makings of nice girls ; and 
there is poor Josie.” 

“Tell me, to begin with, what is the chief trouble 
there, in Cadogan, Verne and Beldon Streets.” 

“Why, Miss, that is n’t far to find ! There ’s a liquor 
store — a big one — on the corner of Verne and Cadogan, 
and one not quite so big on the corner of Cadogan and 
Beldon. Most of the men go to one or the other, and 
their wages are wasted, and they lose work, and get 
cross, and fight and scare the women, and beat the chil- 
dren, and break things. A many of the women drink 
hard, or have a lot of beer brought in every day. The 
boys and girls are coming up in the same way ; and so. 
Miss, it is all noise and quarrels and dirt, and want, to 
make a body sick. And there is Josie — ” 

“Tell me, Bessie,” said Persis, ignoring Josie : “sup- 
pose those two whisky shops were gone, would that local- 
ity be improved and have a chance of betterment ? ” 

“Oh, no indeed! It is such a good stand for the 
liquor trade they ’d be opened again right off 1 ” 

‘ ‘ Suppose that they could mi be reopened — that no 
liquor was sold in the neighborhood ; what then .? ” 

“That indeed. Miss. There ’d be some hope then ; 
but, you see, things are n’t done that way. The liquor men 
are rich and they keep it up, and you can’t drive ’em 
out. If they were driven out, why, the women would be 
better right away, and the boys and girls would have a 
chance for theirselves ; and being a quieter place more 
decent people would go there, and the quiet-like ones 
would not move out,” 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 2$/ 

“I see. The liquor saloons are the Gibralter.” 

“ Miss ? ” 

“Now let me hear about Josie.” 

“She is my friend, Miss, though Josie knows much 
more than I do. She had a better education. Once she 
was a book-keeper ! You might not think it, but she 
was. She 's a good girl, and means well, but she ’s had 
lots of trouble. Things have not gone right for her and — 
I saw her last night, when Mrs. Picot sent me out for 
bread and meat. I felt so dreadful I cried about her in 
the night. Josie has got into trouble. Miss Thrale ! 
She ’s been arrested ! You may guess what that is to a 
well-brought-up girl ! and Bessie incontinently began to 
cry bitterly. 

“Tell me what Josie was arrested for,” said Persis 
after a few minutes’ waiting. 

“Drinking,” sobbed Bessie. 

“Oh! First time?” 

“No, Miss, second! But don’t think Josie is bad, 
or is a drunkard. No, she is not. She wants to be good. 
She hardly ever takes drink. The trouble is. Miss, she 
cannot stand a drop, the least little sets her wild, while 
some girls that take five times as much seem real steady. 
And so, as soon as poor Josie is betrayed into having 
one taste, she has the police after her. Oh, Miss, those 
police — they ’ll pass by a man roaring, staggering drunk, 
or lying flat on a park bench, and arrest a girl that 
is just singing a little loud, or can’t walk real straight. 
Josie ’s just heartbroken, and it ’s going to be the ruin 
of her, I know ! ” 


New Samarlten. 


17 


258 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Has she any work ? ” 

“Yes, Miss. She’s got a place. She went to it two 
weeks ago, over on Rood Street, not far, you know, from 
Cadogan. It is a boarding-house, poor, like, but respect- 
able. Josie is chambermaid, and the woman that keeps 
the house, Mrs. Bell, likes her ever so much. There are 
four hired girls. It is a pretty big boarding-house. Mrs. 
Bell told Josie not to mind, she would keep her ; and 
Josie says she wont set foot out of doors. She ’s on pro- 
bation. ” 

‘ ‘ What is that ? ” 

“She’s been left off of any penalty because she prom- 
ised not to touch another drop ; but each month she has 
to go to the police office and report herself. That is 
horrid hard. Miss ; Josie hates it, folks stare at her so, 
and she feels so ashamed. That boarding-house is a hard 
place.” 

“You tell Josie to keep her courage up, and holdfast 
to her resolution, and as soon as I can I will get acquaint- 
ed with her, and try and find something for her to do 
away from the boarding-house, if she is there tempted 
more than at other places. ” 

“Oh, but she is. Miss ! The hired folks there all use 
a lot of beer, and there ’s beer and porter served out at all 
the meals for them that order it. They are mostly ma- 
chine-shop men, and firemen, and laundry women, and 
they work hard and think they need their ale.” 

Persis returned to the question of Verne and Cadogan 
Streets, with their needs. Had they a day nursery, or a 
kindergarten, or nurse, or reading-room, or Sunday 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 


259 


meeting ? Evidently these streets lay in outlawry ; they 
had nothing at all. Persis sent Bessie to her work, and 
sat thinking — of Josie. The Gardner Street house was 
full : there was no room there for Josie, even if Persis had 
felt it right to receive her. All the women in that 
house were of the thoroughly respectable class of work- 
women : some, like the Clarkes and Mrs. Picot andTrinka, 
really refined and fairly educated. Persis owed it to them 
not to take into the house as an inmate a girl given to 
drink and subject to arrest. Her heart ached for Josie, 
and later that evening she told Bessie to bring her around 
to see her. 

*‘If I meet her. I don’t like to go to the boarding- 
house,” said Bessie with hesitation. 

“ Is it so bad as that, Bessie ? ” 

^‘Oh, it isn’t bad; but — well, Miss, there's a man 
there I ’m afraid of. He asked me to marry him, and 
when I said I would n’t he said he ’d choke me the first 
time he got a chance ! ” 

Here was a rough manner of wooing ; and how many 
fears and perils environ a poor homeless girl ! Persis felt 
that there was something heroic in Bessie’s refusal of a 
marriage offer, in the face of starvation. Why had she 
refused ? 

‘'You are too young to marry, child,” she said. 

“It was n’t that. Miss,” said poor Bessie; “there's 
plenty of them married at fifteen ; but he was twice as 
old as I am, and awful ugly in his cups, and folks said 
he had a wife living somewhere, though he said not ; and 
I thought I ’d rather die !'' 


26 o 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


Poor child ! Think of it, mothers of daughters who 
at fifteen have but lately laid by their dolls, still wear 
short gowns, and dote on story-books, and whose pillow 
is blessed nightly by the mother-face bent above her 
sleeping child. 

“Ask her when you meet her, and by all means keep 
away from the house yourself,” said Persis. 

There seemed to be no immediate way open to help 
Josie, and there was the Cadogan neighborhood to 
think of. 

Next morning Persis received a note from Dr. Bond 
that put Josie quite in the background of her thoughts : 
“Come when your nursing rounds are finished, to-mor- 
row, and spend the rest of the day with us ; I have very 
important business to present to you.” 

“I truly believe it is about Verne and Cadogan 
Streets !” cried Persis, handing the note to her cousins. 
“ I feel sure of it !” 

“Yes,” said Miss Rebecca, wiping her glasses, and 
giving the note a second reading, “I should not be 
surprised if it was. I have noticed when we are plan- 
ning to take up new work we get help. ” Miss Rebecca 
had by this time fully identified herself with all Persis’ 
work ; in fact Persis smilingly noted that Cousin Rebec- 
ca assumed the chief credit of all past and present un- 
dertakings. That made no difference to Persis ; like 
traders who “deal only for cash” she was concerned not 
with credit, but with solid results. 

“Persis,” said Dr. Bond, when she was seated by his 
side in his library, ‘ ‘ I want you to help in a great work 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 261 

which I see opening. I feel a personal interest in it ; it 
will lift a burden from my life, and bring good out of a 
great sorrow.” 

had thought that your life moved only in sun- 
shine,” said Persis, laying her hand on her old pastor's 
arm. 

“The heart knoweth its own bitterness, Persis, and 
‘no lot below for one whole day escapeth care.' My 
days of actual labor are over, but you have about you a 
strong band of workers who will well carry on what I 
shall be happy to see begun — the regeneration of a neigh- 
borhood. ” 

“Tell me. Dr. Bond,” said Persis bending eagerly 
forward: “is it about Verne, Cadogan and Beldon 
Streets ? I have had that locality on my heart for two 
weeks !” 

“Yes, Persis, that is the very place !” 

“Goon; tell me all about it: once more all the 
lines are leading to one point. ” 

“It will be a long story, Persis, but old men are 
garrulous. ” 

“ Never too long. I want to hear every word !” 

“You know that I was not born in the city, but in 
one of the large towns of the rural districts in the 
interior of the State. My youngest and favorite sister, a 
number of years younger than myself, married a wealthy 
farmer, the heritor of two large farms ; he was a pleasant, 
energetic, fine-looking man, the one objection to the 
match being that he was not a Christian. They had two 
daughters, and after a lapse of ten years a long-desired 


262 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


son. With that boy’s birth a demon of avarice seemed to 
enter my brother-in-law. He was frantic to amass a 
great fortune for the boy, both by saving and gaining. 
He lived in the midst of a rich fruit and grain country. 
He set up a distillery. If the growth of such a business 
was prosperity, he prospered. My poor sister was nearly 
heart-broken. That made no difference : he had but one 
idea — his son. The two daughters were kept at home, only 
educated as the country school could educate them. The 
household was on the simplest footing, except that the 
large, handsome house was kept in scrupulous repair to 
be the son’s future home. The boy was gifted and 
gracious, but frail in physique ; he died in his fifteenth 
year, and his mother soon followed him. The daughters 
had been kept closely at home — they were not permitted 
even to visit me ; they were shy, unversed in any of the 
ways of the world ; dominated by their father, who had 
grown bitter and inordinately selfish. The greed of gain 
possessed him, and after his son’s death he kept on in the 
same methods. As is done by many distillers, he estab- 
lished liquor saloons in the city, buying properties and 
renting them to rum-sellers. He had one of these places 
on the corner of Verne and Cadogan, the other on the 
corner of Cadogan and Beldon Streets. Evidently you do 
not need to have me tell you of their work in those places. 
The daughters, my nieces, found the sole comfort of their 
secluded, restricted lives in their religion and their mutual 
affection. The little country church near them was their 
true home, and their father’s avarice obliged them to earn 
with their own hands, by embroidering or making jellies 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 


263 


and cakes for the neighbors, their slender offerings toward 
church support and mission work. They never travelled, 
never visited, had no books except those books and mag- 
azines which I sent them. They were almost as cut off 
from the world and its ways as if they had lived in a con- 
vent ; as for means, in the midst of wealth they had not 
so much as a chicken or the produce of a churning which 
they could call their own. Almost a year ago this man 
died suddenly. I was ill, you remember, and my son 
was abroad. Laura, my daughter-in-law, went to my 
nieces. They were between forty and forty-five years of 
age, sole inheritors of over a million, and both millions 
and possession meant to them no more than so much 
Coptic. The day after the funeral, Sara, the eldest niece 
— their names are Sara and Eliza Stafford — asked Laura, 
my daughter-in-law, if they had any right to" stop the 
working of the distillery on Sabbath. The Sabbath work 
had greatly distressed her. Laura told her that as abso- 
lute owners they had every right to dictate, and they 
ordered the establishment shut on Sunday. Laura told 
me that that first Sabbath a Missionary Sermon was 
preached, in which they were intensely interested. Papers 
were passed around for subscription, and they had a whis- 
pered conference, then appealed to Laura whether she 
thought they could give much. She replied ‘ as much as 
you wish.' After another whispered consultation, pale at 
their own audacity, they subscribed twenty-five dollars 
apiece, to them an enormous sum, saying that if there 
was no other way to raise it, they could sell the Jersey 
cow ! 


264 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


The following evening they had gone to the grave- 
yard to plan for the improvement of their burial lot. In 
their interview with the old sexton and the village school- 
master, who was present, the conversation turned to the 
business affairs of the deceased and especially the dis- 
tillery; and in answer to their questions the sisters 
learned something about men and families wrecked 
by it, and especially of the two shops on Cadogan Street, 
and the horrors they sowed in their neighborhood. This 
was to the two women a revelation : kept apart from the 
world, and ignorant of business, they had had no realiz- 
ation of the deadly nature of their father s traffic. The 
truths now learned were bitter, but they recognized them 
as stern truths. Laura said they came home in a pitiable 
condition, overwhelmed with shame and sorrow. It sud- 
denly occurred to her to tell them that to weep over the 
past was idle, but that the reins of power were in their 
own hands. They could shut the distillery ! It was 
open to them in some way to restore the years that ‘ the 
canker worm had eaten,’ by doing good, and using in 
doing good the hated gains of evil. Their long-repressed 
but naturally strong natures asserted themselves : next 
morning they sent orders to close the distillery instantly. 
The superintendent, a life-long crony of their father, 
rushed to them fairly tearing his hair, and crying out on 
the destruction of property and the ruin of turning so 
many men out of employment. The sisters ordered the 
workmen’s wages to be continued until they could de- 
cide what to do. Happily, Laura knew our friend Tren- 
ton was in the neighborhood seeking a summer home 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 265 

for his family. She sent for him, and — ^you know what 
Tom is — he threw himself into the affair with all his 
heart. He advocated turning the distillery into a can- 
ning and jelly factory, retaining such hands as wished to 
work at the conversion of the buildings and the new bus- 
iness. The workmen’s houses were repaired, enlarged, 
and improved, a reading-room and school set up, sani- 
tary and temperance information promulgated, and new 
times were inaugurated. Meanwhile the superintendent, 
zealous for property, shipped to the city store-house all 
the liquor in stock and sold the machinery, after which 
he severed his connection with two women whom he 
called ‘ too cranky to get on with. ’ 

“By the aid of a new superintendent, and of their law- 
yer, a really spendid man, my nieces have in this year 
learned something of business and of their own rights. 
On their first awakening they wished to close the Cado- 
gan Street dens ; but as the leases did not expire until this 
coming June, and the holders would not be bought off, 
Cadogan Street had to be let alone for a time. They not 
only own those saloon properties, but so many other 
houses in that neighborhood that, if they undertake a 
new order of things there, they are in a position to keep 
liquor pretty well out and bring decency in. They came 
here last fall and my son took them to see their property. 
They nearly died of horror at the revelation. Since then 
they have read up all that they could on the city poor, 
the tenement-house system and the slums, and Tom 
Trenton has given them plenty of information. They are 
resolved to come to Cadogan Street and go to work, 


266 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


spending nine months of the year in the city and three 
at their country home, which they mean to turn into a 
kind of sanitarium for sick poor. They feel as if in com- 
ing to the city they were entering a den of wild beasts. 
Two weeks last fall represents their whole experience of 
city life. They think that they take their lives in their 
hands, but they are resolved to undo some of their poor 
father’s miserable work if they die in the attempt. They 
remind me somewhat of your cousins, the Misses North, of 
a dozen years ago, in their appearance and many of their 
ways ; but your cousins had experience, and these two 
have, instead, only money. ” 

“Money !” cried Persis. “Blessed possession, when 
it is consecrated. Without money we could do little for 
Cadogan Street, but that money will be the lever to raise 
that wretched locality into an estate of decency and so- 
briety. They have the power, the will, the opportunity ; 
what more can anybody want 

‘ ‘ They are coming here next week ; I want you to 
take them to your Gardner Street house for a whole fort- 
night, to see your work in all its departments, to become 
acquainted with your people. I think your cousins will 
be very congenial and a great comfort to them. To see 
you, Persis, as you are, after over a decade of this work, 
that will allay their terrors. Remember, they have no 
experience, no knowledge of affairs ; to all that you must 
help them. Then their money will bring for philanthropy 
its best returns. They are willing, anxious, to be di- 
rected. You will have Trenton’s knowledge and strong 
common-sense to aid you in suggestion. It seems to 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 267 

me to be such a wide and promising field that I almost 
wish to be young again to undertake it. In my time no 
such immense possibilities opened before me. The har- 
vest was great, but the laborers were few; their imple- 
ments were feeble.” 

‘ ‘ Dear father, ” said Laura, the wife of the doctor’s 
eldest son, a pastor in one of the suburbs of the city, 

‘ ‘ you have had your day of work and, whether with few 
helpers or with many, you have gathered great sheaves.” 
She had come in while Dr. Brown talked, and had seated 
herself by Persis on the sofa. 

“There will be laborers raised up, I know,” said the 
old man. “Persis, you can provide some from among 
your constituents. ” 

“No doubt. There will be many needed, many and 
choice. ” 

“Why don’t you ask me?” said young Mrs. Bond, 
turning her pretty, roguish face toward Persis. 

“ It is against my principles. You are of age, speak 
for yourself. I never call the workers ; I leave the call 
to God, who only can make it imperative. There is 
much work in the world, and of many kinds.* This may 
not be your field at all. Certainly not, if you are not 
drawn to it without my urging. You will never be idle ; 
it is not in you. Over in your congregation what do 
they call you ?” 

Mrs. Bond laughed. “Something too complimentary 
for me to repeat. However, truth is, I was not made 
for the Cadogan Street work. Once, do you know, one 
of our good ladies summoned me to go with her on an 


268 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


errand of mercy to a terrible tenement house, to see a 
sick woman. Suddenly I found myself being dragged to 
a window and my head unceremoniously thrust out. 
Having been aired in this fashion for a while, I was es- 
corted to the street, taken to a drug-store two blocks 
away, given some ice-water with camphor and other 
things in it, and then kindly advised to go home and 
never come back. My good parishioner had discovered 
my limitations ; I presume she thought me a very poor 
specimen of a pastoress, and she never invited me to do 
that kind of work again. I do not faint at the sight of 
blood ; I can assist most respectably at a surgical opera- 
tion ; I do not fear lunatics nor drunken people, but I 
cannot stand foul air.” 

‘‘To every one his work,” said Persis ; “but once 
we are in possession in Cadogan Street we will pro- 
claim a crusade against foul air, and some day you 
can come down there and see how the New Evangel pro- 
gresses. ” 

‘ ‘ My nieces wish to renovate those two saloon prop- 
erties as soon as they are vacated, and to make them 
headquarter^ of good as they have been of evil. Trenton 
told them of your Gardner Street house ; that will be the 
model for one of them, I suppose. They intend to see 
to the whitewashing, repairing, re-plumbing and thorough 
sanitation of the houses they own in that quarter, and to 
rent all their tenements on the most reasonable terms 
possible. They are planning a night cooking-school, a 
mothers’ club, a sewing-school, day nursery, kindergar- 
ten, labor bureau, a training home for domestics ; what- 


JOSIE, BESSIE AND OTHERS. 269 

ever they see advocated in a book or magazine they 
wish to inaugurate at once. You will have to limit them 
to the possible, and teach them your way of building 
slowly to build surely. " 

‘^Oh, wont Cousin Rebecca rejoice to take them in 
hand !” laughed Persis. 


270 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE DAUGHTERS OF SORROW. 

“ Saviour, breathe forgiveness o’er us ; 

All our weakness thou dost know. 

Thou didst tread this earth before us, 

Thou didst feel its keenest woe. 

Lone and dreary. 

Faint and weary, 

Through the desert thou didst go.” 

The coming of Misses Sara and Eliza Stafford to 
Gardner Street was a great event in the lives of the 
Misses North. The four elderly women made friends at 
once. The Norths felt for their new acquaintances the 
respectful admiration accorded to wealth, when its pos- 
sessors are not especially iniquitous ; while -the shy, 
country-bred women looked with almost reverence at 
women who thoroughly understood the city, and were at 
home, fearless, among its pitfalls. Since Persis had 
found them, Rebecca and Susan North had been touched 
lightly by time ; they were relieved of fear of penury, and 
of the pressure of daily needs ; they were engaged in 
congenial work. Miss Rebecca had become more gra- 
cious, and Miss Susan more self-reliant. Miss Rebecca 
constituted herself the guide of the strangers through all 
The neighborhood where they were to make their home ; 
each department of the work was exhibited, and where 
the enthusiasm of the new workers would have under- 


THE DAUGHTERS OF SORROW. 271 

taken too much, and too hastily, Persis came to the res- 
cue with her moderation and careful planning. 

“You will need to keep Luke 14 .*28 well in mind,” 
said Persis ; “ ‘For which of you, intending to build a 
tower, sitteth not down first and counteth the cost, 
whether he hath sufficient to finish ?’ ” 

“ I know,” said Miss Sara, “that, having never until 
this last year had the disposal of any money, we are now 
likely to think what we have inexhaustible. No doubt it 
looks larger to us than to any one else. ” 

“It is a very large sum,” said Persis, “but in my 
hint about counting costs I included more things than 
money. We need to consider whether time and place 
are suited to our designs ; whether what we wish to see 
done can be carried through, or whether the hostility of 
those whom we wish to help may not be so great that it 
would be better for us to work on some less oppugnated 
lines.” 

“Oh, if we were only wise in these things as you 
are !” 

“ I have nearly twelve years’ experience. It will not 
seem long to you before you have as much. ” 

“Of course you know just how we feel,” said Miss 
Eliza. “Of the money that we have, we only desire 
enough for ourselves to cover our simple needs through 
life. We have no one to leave the property to ; we 
should not enjoy spending on luxuries money that was 
gained out of the ruined bodies and souls of our fellow 
creatures ; and we not only wish to restore to society 
what was wrongly taken away, but we feel as if time 


272 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


presses ; so much evil is going on, and has been, for 
many years, through our poor father’s mistaken course, 
that now we cannot bear to lose a minute.” 

^‘You will think we have lost a whole year. Miss 
Thrale,” said Miss Sara ; “but you see we could not get 
possession of the property here, and we had also to get a 
new agent for the houses, a good man, who would un- 
derstand our wishes, and help out our reforms, and be 
able to advise us. I ’m afraid the last agent was cruelly 
hard ! We had a good deal to do up near our home too, 
so much that sometimes it seemed as if we should not 
take time even to sleep. The superintendent and the 
lawyer would sometimes keep us for two or three hours 
at a time discussing affairs, because we knew nothing 
about business, and had it all to learn !” 

“But being relieved of the housework and sewing 
was a great deal,” suggested Miss Eliza. 

“Yes, indeed! Do you know. Miss Persis, that 
during our father’s life we did all our own sewing and 
housework, except having a woman now and then for 
the heaviest scrubbing and washing. It did not at first 
occur to us that that might be changed. Our cousin 
Laura, who can see to anything, took the matter in hand, 
and hired two women and a man for the work, and as 
we did not know at all how to manage with servants she 
settled all for us, and showed us how to do, while she 
was with us three or four months. Our work people are 
a woman with her son and daughter, very nice folks ; the 
father had gone wrong through that distillery, and they 
had lost all, so it was well we could provide for them. 


THE DAUGHTERS OF SORRO"^. 


273 


It is a lovely old place. You must come home with us 
some summer and see it. Cousin Laura found just the 
person to manage it while we are gone ; it is to be a 
kind of sanitarium for sick women and children.” 

‘‘But, sister Sara, I think you were the one to suggest 
Mrs. Lane for that place, ” said Miss Eliza. 

“Was I? Well, you and Cousin Laura showed me 
how very suitable she would be. Miss Thrale, several 
years ago she was our pastor’s wife ; she is a widow now, 
with a crippled daughter, and they have nothing to live 
on. Uncle Bond says that so often happens with the 
families of the ministers who all their lives serve the small 
churches. Mrs. Lane is a fine housekeeper, and nurse 
and economist ; you may guess how well she will look 
after our place up there. We feel so easy about it, now 
that we have come here to work.” 

These good, simple souls were delightful to Persis ; 
they were a revelation to her, something new in her ex- 
periences. It was a privilege to aid them, to make the 
way which they had resolutely chosen seem less dan- 
gerous and difficult. 

They had decided to use the long-time liquor stand 
on Verne and Cadogan Streets for a home similar in 
every way to Persis’ Gardner Street home, and already 
the work of alteration had begun. Great changes were 
being made in all that locality; the tenements owned by 
the Stafford sisters were being repaired ; paint, plumbing, 
paper, whitewash, drains, new windows, new doorsteps, 
new stairs ; the tenants looked on with amazement ; with 
some satisfaction also, when, by the ladies’ orders, men 

18 


New Samaritan. 


274 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and boys of the vicinage who were out of work were, 
as far as possible, given employment in the renovations. 

“If we are to go on well over there, and make our 
home like this,” said Miss Sara to Persis, “we must be- 
gin by robbing you. We need Katherine and Annie 
Clarke. We are so ignorant of the ways and the trickery 
of the city, and are so full of pity for the miseries that 
we see about us, that if we do not have with us some 
one that understands city work we shall be constantly 
going wrong. You will miss the Clarkes.” 

“Yet I shall be glad to have them with you. Kath- 
erine has been for years like my right hand, and I shall 
be glad to see her give up her sewing entirely and go 
into work for which she is so well fitted,” said Persis. 

“For the first year or so,” added Miss Eliza, “we 
will divide the nursing among four of us. We want to 
become acquainted with our neighborhood. Meantime, 
we hope you will train a nurse for us, taking her into 
your work until she is able to do well alone. ” 

‘ ‘ I shall be very glad to do so, ” said Persis. 

“Then you know of a suitable person 

“Oh, no; I cannot think of one just at present; 
but I feel sure that if such a nurse is needed the person 
to be trained will soon be sent. I look for these supplies 
for needs that arise as confidently as a little child looks 
for its dinner. ” 

“We shall not have the flower work,” said Miss 
Eliza, “but we know of a young lady, a friend of 
Cousin Laura Bond, who makes fans and the expensive 
kinds of Easter cards and valentines, the kinds that are 


THE DAUGHTERS OF SORROW. 2/5 

made up with celluloid, satin and silk ; she will come to 
us, and we will have a little establishment for teaching 
that work and filling orders ; she has quite a large con- 
nection in the trade now. Instead of the dressmaking, 
we will have apprentices for plain family sewing of all 
kinds, for knitting and crocheting, because we under- 
stand and can teach those things, and we think we can 
get orders for our people's work. " 

‘ ‘ Where they have broken up a saloon at Beldon and 
Cadogan Streets," spoke up Miss Rebecca, “they mean 
to have a cooking-school in the basement, a reading- 
room and employment office for young men on the first 
floor, and Mr. Trenton is going to hold a Bible class 
there every Sunday afternoon and form a temperance 
society. The second floor will be a night-school for 
men and boys ; the third floor, rented rooms for respect- 
able single workingmen, and the attic will be free lodg- 
ing-rooms for those out of health or employment." 

“It is in memory of our brother Newton," explained 
Miss Sara ; “he was such a dear, good boy, and it was 
our father’s great love for him that tempted him to go 
into the business we so much regret. We shall call that 
house Newton House, and the employment office, read- 
ing-room, renting of the lodging-rooms, and the use of 
the free rooms are to be in charge of a man we shall get 
through the Y. M. C. A., but we shall need an elderly 
woman to live in the house also, and give a home-like 
look to it and see to keeping it in order. Just the right 
person will be hard to find, we are afraid, but we look to 
you to find her, Miss Persis, " 


2/6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


have her,” said Persis, glancing out of the window 
and smiling at a passer-by. The Misses Stafford looked, 
and saw a stout, motherly lady of about fifty, dressed in 
widow’s black, going by, leading two very small children. 

“Her name is Mrs. Hook,” said Persis; “those are 
her grandchildren. Her eldest son and eldest daughter 
are married ; each has one child. Mrs. Hook’s husband 
was a sailor, and died in China a year ago. She has 
seven children, but only the youngest, a girl of twelve, 
is dependent upon her. Next older is a boy, so very 
bright that a member of the School Board became inter- 
ested in him and has taken him to educate ; he is to go 
through the Polytechnic. Next older is a girl with spinal 
trouble ; she has been admitted to the Hospital for 
Incurables. She is a dear little girl, of those who ^ also 
serve, who only stand and wait.’ Above her is Ellen, a 
girl with such a passion for missionary work that she de- 
sired to go even as servant in some foreign field. She 
is eighteen, understands housework and plain sewing, 
and graduated at the grammar school. A year ago she 
went to Alaska with a young missionary couple, to whom 
she will be servant, friend, helper in every way, and by 
and by grow into more direct missionary work. The 
other one of the seven is a young man who has been with 
me for a year, but is now in a factory ; he is a very ex- 
cellent fellow, lives with his mother, and could go with 
her to your house, making a little family of plain, pleas- 
ant, Christian people there that would be very helpful. 

“How nicely you plan things,” said Miss Sara. “Do 
you think we can get Mrs. Hook to go there ?” 


THE DAUGHTERS OF SORROW. 


27; 


I feel sure of it.” 

“I will take you to see her,” said Miss Rebecca. 
“She will do whatever Persis says. Ten years ago she 
would have died if Persis had not laid out six hundred 
dollars on curing her.” 

“Verily I have had my reward,” said Persis. “Look 
at what a nice useful family she has kept together and 
raised. If she had died, what would have become of 
the poor scattered things.? That family has been a 
rebuke to my lack of faith. I used to think there were 
far too many of them, and that room and work in the 
world could not be found for them. Now only see ! 
‘God has his plan for every man.’ As to what was 
done for her. Cousin Rebecca, was it not all a conse- 
quence of her charity to little Tommy Tibbets ? ‘ Cast 

thy bread upon the waters and thou shalt find it after 
many days ’ has come true in her case. ” 

“You told us,” said Miss Eliza Stafford, “that you 
had been thinking of other work needed over at Cado- 
gan Street. What is it .?” 

“It is simply this,” said Miss Persis. “You are 
trying to renovate a neighborhood which for years has 
had two drinking-places as headquarters for all the 
men round about. If they were tired, lonely, thirsty, 
faint, or hungry, in they went and had their half-and- 
half or beer or whiskey, and maybe crackers, salt herring, 
or rolls. The drinking-places are banished, but the 
habit, the desire, the provocatives of desire, remain — 
the men will miss the old resorts, and still be hungry, 
tired, lonely, thirsty, hot, cold. They will not have 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


278 

far to go, not over three or four squares, to find just such 
places as you have closed. What I think is needed is 
to give them something to make up for what you take 
away ; something in its own line. Right beside the 
transformed Verne Street liquor-store I should put a 
coffee-house. Take for it the lower floor of the house 
that you own adjacent, and use the cellar for a kitchen. 
Have the room well-lighted, well-ventilated, in winter 
well-heated, in summer shaded, aired, and with green 
plants in the windows. Have tea, coffee, chocolate, 
sandwiches, bread, rolls, corn-bread, cold meat, pickles, 
pies, and in summer iced lemonade, at the very lowest 
prices which will make the place self-supporting. Until 
its constituency is assured you will have to throw in the 
rent. The coffee-room should be always clean and or- 
derly ; run in the cheap way of oilcloth-covered tables, 
tin spoons and cheap dishes ; but I hold that it can be 
made attractive by walls with pictures, dishes of pretty 
shape and colors, clean floor, newspapers at hand, and 
the plants I have mentioned. Have a board at the side 
of the door, announcing your prices as five cents for hot 
coffee and a roll, five cents for iced lemonade and a 
sandwich, and so on. You will need to find a man and 
wife, honest, kind, neat, rigidly economical ; the woman 
a good cook for the simple things you need, the man 
for waiter and to keep the coffee-room in order. Thus 
you will fight your saloons with their own weapons of an 
open place, not too rigidly nice, and refreshments of the 
cheapest. Your customers should not be hustled out as 
soon as the coffee is swallowed, as in the French cheap 


THE DAUGHTERS OF SORROW. 2‘jg 

caf6s ; let them sit with their paper and cup as long as 
they wish ; that rest and refuge may tide them over the 
hour of temptation or despair.” 

“We will do it !” cried both the sisters. “We will 
go and look at the house and speak to our agent about 
the changes this very day. Oh, Miss Thrale, this sounds 
as if it would be the best thing of all ! Shall we have 
such another coffee-house on Belden Street ?” 

‘ ‘ I had thought of something else, ” said Persis, 
“perhaps you will like it. It is a cook-shop, such as I 
used to see in Italian cities. The poor people there 
have no stoves or cooking-places in their houses, and 
there are shops for cheap hot food. Many of our poor 
have no accommodations for cooking, fuel is scarce, the 
mothers are away all day at work, or are busy, or sick. 
If there could be a cook-shop where bread, hot stews, 
soup, broths, corn-bread, hotch-potch, boiled potatoes, 
vegetable hash, boiled beans, or pork and beans, could 
be dealt out in quantity, to be carried home, and served 
wholesomely prepared at rates as cheap as persons could 
provide it for themselves, I think the whole neighborhood 
would be benefited. The cheapness could be secured by 
buying in large quantities — by wholesale ; fuel bought in 
the same way. There is saving in cooking large quanti- 
ties of food at once, and in having scrupulous economy, 
allowing no waste in the cooking, and by good judgment 
in buying. With such a cook-shop, well patronized, the 
health of the neighborhood would improve by reason of 
healthful and nourishing food. Very much drunkenness 
and other vice results from bad and insufficient food. ” 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


2B0 

The housekeeperly instincts of the Stafford sisters 
were now awake. They were full of delight over a plan 
which they could thoroughly understand. “I believe, 
Eliza,” said Miss Sara, “that we shall be happier here 
than we have ever been in all our lives. ” 

“Yes, Sara ; and I think, after a while, with all these 
friends to help us, we shall begin to know what to do, 
and how to do it.” 

The visit of the Misses Stafford at Gardner Street 
ended, an the improvements in the Cadogan Street dis- 
trict continued to fill the long-neglected inhabitants with 
amazement. There were some who resented the new 
order of affairs, and moved away when prohibited the 
dear delights of flinging slop out of the windows, or get- 
ting rid of a tub of washing suds by the prompt fashion 
of turning it over at the top of the stairs. With most, 
however, better quarters, with rents not raised, even 
lowered in some instances, and a kindly, firm, helpful 
agent in place of a loud tyrant, made even decency en- 
durable. 

Persis Thrale stood on her door-step one morning 
waiting to speak a word to Tommy, Dorry and Dora, 
before she joined Miss Rebecca, who was seated in a 
carriage before the door. Persis and Miss Rebecca were 
due at a morning session of the “Woman’s Protective 
Club.” Just as Persis was about to cross the sidewalk 
to the carriage she saw Bessie Jay running blindly along 
toward her, tears pouring over her face, and scarcely 
seeming to know what she was doing or where she was. 

“Oh, Miss Thrale, Josie ! Josie !” she sobbed. 


THE DAUGHTERS OF SORROW. 28 1 

“What is it, Bessie Her calm, firm voice at once 
stilled some of Bessie’s excitement. 

“ She’s arrested !” cried Bessie. 

“Drinking again, Bessie.?” 

“ No ! For not drinking.” 

“Softly, Bessie ; tell me about it.” 

“Mrs. Picot sent me for sewing-silk, and up there, 
round the corner, I met them. The policeman taking 
Josie off. She was pale as the dead, and could hardly 
stand. Oh, I ran to her, and put my arn.s round her, 
and kissed her, and asked her to tell me about it, and I 
walked a little way with her, until the policeman said to 
go back, it was no business of mine. And Josie wishes 
she was dead. ” 

“But tell me for what she is arrested.” 

“ For not reporting. She was to report each month, 
while she was on six months’ probation, you know. And 
she never went out of the house, she was so afraid of 
going wrong, and so ashamed of being arrested. She 
thought as she was all right they would not care, so she 
did n’t go and report, and they came and arrested her. 
Now she ’ll be sent to the Women’s Prison for a year, 
and oh. Miss Thrale, what ’s a girl going to do when she 
has the name of * jail-bird’ on her.? Can’t you save 
Josie, Miss .? They ’ve taken her round to the court- 
room. I ’spect they ’d have sent her in the Black Maria, 
only it was full of dreadful ones from the precinct. Oh, 
please. Miss Persis !” 

“Bessie, go up to the work-room and wait ; I will 
go and look after Josie. A tall girl, you say ?” 


282 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Yes, tall and neat, and very nice-looking, with 
brown hair and a round face, a little bit freckled. You’ll 
know her. She looks nice — and she is, she is!” 

“There, there ; go up to the work-room, Bessie,” said 
Persis, realizing that her work as a member of the 
“Woman’s Protective Club ” was that morning to appear 
at the Court, and not at the Club. 

“Cousin Rebecca, if you will drive round to the 
Court House with me, and leave me there, I will have to 
ask you to go to the Club alone.” 

Cousin Rebecca agreed. She enjoyed the Club 
meetings, and moreover had on for the first wearing a 
nice, new black silk gown and bonnet ; it would have 
seemed a cruelty not to take them to the Club. As for 
the court-room, she would not have known what to do 
there, and Persis was competent to all her own under- 
takings. 

Cousin Rebecca drove away, and Persis, tall and 
dignified, went calmly down the court-room, looking for 
Sorrow’s Daughter. 


LED INTO HOPE. 


283 


CHAPTER XXI. 

LED INTO HOPE. 

“ Though the circling flight of time may find us 
Far apart, or severed more and more, 

Yet the farewell always lies behind us, 

And the welcome always lies before. 

Meanwhile God is leading, surely, slowly. 

Through the shadows, with the hand of love. 

To the home where, ’mid the myriads holy. 

Only welcomes wait us all above.” 

A TEDIOUS and apparently much entangled case of two 
men and a dog was occupying the judge and several law- 
yers. A knot of idle hangers-on looked and laughed as 
the witnesses testified, and for said laughter were called 
to order by the judge, who threatened to have the court- 
room cleared. Several men, evidently well known to the 
Island, were on the left side of the room, waiting their 
turn, under police charge, for His Honor’s consideration ; 
the deplorable band of women just descended from the 
Black Maria filled two benches on the right. Behind 
these, alone in a chair, near the policemen who were 
looking after the culprits, was a tall, well-made girl, in a 
neat calico dress and white apron ; her face was bowed 
almost to her lap, and she shook constantly, as with 
suppressed weeping. 

Evidently this was Josie. Persis passed around be- 
hind the benches, spoke a word to the policeman, who 


284 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


was known to her, as were by this time most of the 
members of the force, and taking a chair beside Josie, 
gently clasped her hand, and whispered in her ear. 

^^Your friend Bessie sent me to you. I am Miss 
Thrale. I think I can do something for you if you will 
tell me all about it. We are sheltered behind these 
women, and if you speak very softly no one will hear 
us.” Persis’ words were in those low-breathed, soft, not 
whispering or hissing tones, which the experienced nurse 
soon cultivates. Her very presence brought hope and 
strength to the heart-broken Josie. 

“ How came you here ?” 

“Beer did it,” said Josie, with a gasp. 

“ Bessie says you were once a cashier.” 

“Yes, I was.” 

“You look as if you had been well brought up. 
Tell me all.” 

“Yes, I was well brought up.” And then, with a 
little question here and there from Persis, here was the 
story of poor Josie : “ The one thing I am most glad of 
every day is that my dead parents do not know that I 
am here, that I am so disgraced. My father was a 
mechanic, a good, quiet man, but not very strong. My 
mother had a number of children ; all died when they 
were babies, but me. I was unfortunate to live ! My 
father fell from a scaffolding, and was helpless for two 
years before he died. So much sickness and death used 
up all our little savings. I was seven years old when my 
mother and I were left alone. We furnished two rooms 
and my mother sewed. I went to school until I was 


LED INTO HOPE. 


285 

sixteen. Then, as I had had my course at a business 
college, I got a cashier’s place. My mother had worked 
hard, and suffered much. She died when I was seven- 
teen. The bills of her sickness used up all we had 
laid by. I sold our furniture to pay the funeral expenses. 
I see now that it would have been better to have kept 
one room and got one decent woman to share it with 
me. But I was only seventeen, and the women I knew 
said that I must board somewhere. My salary, for eleven 
hours’ work daily, was five dollars a week. I could not 
get respectable board for less than that, and at respect- 
able places they will not let girls do their washing in 
the kitchens at night. My employers demanded that I 
should be decently dressed, but if my board cost all my 
wages what was there for clothes and washing ? I told 
my employer all that, and he said, ‘ How I made up the 
deficiency was my look out ; plenty of girls would take 
the situation if it did not suit me. ’ 

“All I could do was to find cheap board. I got it 
in a workman’s family, at two dollars and a half a week. 
We were three in a room. The other girls all drank 
beer. Often all our supper was bread and cheese and 
beer. For noon we had cold meat, bread and beer. It 
was too much trouble for our landlady to make soup. 
My mother had been a good, economical cook, and I 
was accustomed to wholesome food, and enough of it. 
I felt weak from poor diet and hard work. They all 
told me to use beer, it would ‘keep up my strength,’ 
they said, and was just what I wanted. So I began to 
use it. I suppose I am easily affected by beer. What I 


286 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


took always made me noisy and careless. The rest of 
them laughed at me, but it was more than a laughing 
matter. I went back to my work one afternoon, swing- 
ing my arms -and singing ‘ Grandfather’s Clock ’ pretty 
loudly. I was met and dismissed before I got to my 
desk. I could not get another place as cashier, but I 
went for sewing at the shop where my mother had had 
work, and I lived by sewing until work gave out. Then 
I went to an intelligence office, and as I am strong and 
tidy I had no trouble in getting a chambermaid’s place 
at a boarding-house. The work was hard, and all the 
servants had beer sent into the kitchen for them. I had 
grown fond of it, and I took my share. One evening I 
was noisy on the street, and was arrested. As it was a 
first arrest my mistress got me offi Three months after 
we had been to a show and had some beer coming home. 
I knew I was not doing right to use beer, or go to low 
shows, or to mix with the rough girls I did. My mother 
would have been heart-broken ! That night I was sing- 
ing, and jostling the other girls, and I was arrested again. 
That time I was released on probation. Then I had to find 
another place, in a cheaper boarding-house, because — 
because I had been twice arrested. You see, I was to 
keep straight and report myself at the police office. I was 
told if I did not report I was liable to arrest. I did not 
touch another drop of beer. I was thoroughly frightened 
and sick of it. But I did not report at the office, and so 
I was arrested. ” 

“But, Josie, why did you not report.?” 

“You see, I was busy, and I was keeping in-doors to 


LED INTO HOPE, 


287 


be out of temptation to drink, and I felt so ashamed to 
go to that office and report ! I fancied that as long as I 
was doing well they would not mind about the report. 
Oh, how I felt when they came and arrested me, and to 
think — I am only twenty-one, and here I ’m likely to get 
a year in a Reformatory, just for using beer ! If it 
had n’t been for that horrible beer I might be yet in my 
cashier’s place ! And yet, Miss Thrale, as you may 
think, a little, hot, untidy room on a noisy street, three 
of us in one bed, and only one window in the room ; 
poor food, and beer, beer, beer always around one, and 
one's washing, ironing and mending to do after dark — 
and making, too, for there was no money to pay for 
making clothes — well, that was n’t a happy or easy life 
for a girl.” 

‘ ‘ No, it was not. And you paid two dollars and a half ?” 

“Yes, for fire, lights, food, shelter, soap. They said 
it was as cheap as they could do it. And the woman 
did n’t know much about cooking or cleaning, or any 
housekeeping. She had been a factory hand. You see, 
for shoes, and hats, and dresses, and all my clothes, two 
dollars and a half was not over much. I had to wear a 
good woolen or sateen dress at the store, and a decent 
hat and shoes. They expected me to dress respectably 
if I had only five dollars a week for all my living. Work- 
ing girls have it pretty hard ; do n’t they. Miss Thrale ?” 

“I’m afraid they do.” 

“And every block in those poor quarters where we 
have to live has its beer-shop — and people urge us to 
buy, and we are hot, and tired and hopeless,” 


288 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Don't be hopeless/' said Persis. 

Josie continued her history : “In the city boarding- 
houses most of the servants have the habit of beer drink- 
ing, and they urge all the others to join them so there 
will be more to help to pay for the beer. 

“Now who’ll hire me for anything, after I’ve had a 
year in prison ? I hope I ’ll die there ! The woman I 
lived with says she ’ll take me back any time ; but who 
will think well of me, or treat me as if I were a decent 
girl, with the name of ‘ jail bird ’ ? ” 

“It is only the story of one poor, homeless, mother- 
less, city working-girl, an industrious, cleanly, virtuous 
girl, who has found life too hard for her,” meditated 
Persis. 

The story had been told, with pauses for Josie’s weep- 
ing, with little breaks for Persis’ questions. The case of 
the men and the dog had been concluded. The file of 
men had stood up and in short order received their sen- 
tences to the Island ; one after another the women on 
the benches were called and rose ; testimony, chiefly by 
the arresting officers, was given ; sentences were an- 
nounced, and once more the Black Maria was receiving 
its complement. 

“Josie Martin ! What charge 

Josie rose, but would have fallen had not something 
happened. The lady by her side clasped her hand, and 
walked forward with her. The charge was made : then 
that clear, full, rich contralto was heard. 

“Judge Thwait, will you allow me to say a few 
words before you pass sentence /’ 


LED INTO HOPE. 


289 

The judge started, then bowed with more than mere 
courtesy. He and Persis had met before. Nearly a year 
before they had been guests at a party given by Mr. and 
Mrs. Inskip. Judge and Mrs. Thwait had been greatly 
charmed with Persis. Her conversation, her manner, her 
beauty, and, above all, the account given to them pri- 
vately by their hosts of her great work among the poor, 
had drawn them to her in a strong desire to know her 
better. The illness of a daughter, and a trip abroad, 
had prevented them from continuing the acquaintance 
as they had wished. Now for the first time since that 
brilliant evening they met, the judge on the bench, Per- 
sis before him holding by the hand a prisoner. 

‘^Miss Thrale ! Is this young woman one of your 
proteges V 

“She is now. I came here to find her, although I 
had not seen her before. May I tell you her story ? I 
think you will feel that she is rather sinned against than 
sinning ; that she should be dealt leniently with ; that 
the charge now lying against her is a result not of 
evil inclination, but of sorrow and shame for past 
misdemeanor, and of earnest effort to escape wrong- 
doing. ” 

The judge bowed. “The court will be glad to hear 
all that you have to say. Miss Thrale ; such powerful pre- 
ventive work as yours is often stronger for justice and 
morality than the weight of the law.” 

In brief earnest sentences Persis told the story which 
she had just heard of Josie’s Martin’s life. 

“If now,” she said, “you will remit this girl's sen- 

19 


New Samaritan. 


290 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


tence, and allow her to go home with me, I will aid in 
her efforts at reform. I feel that I can assure you that 
she will lead a good and useful life. After a year in 
prison how little hope there will be for her ! The world's 
heart is cold and hard to the ex-convict.” 

“I will dismiss the charge against Josie Martin and 
place her in your care,” said the judge. “The city owes 
you. Miss Thrale, a yearly increasing debt of gratitude 
for what you are doing in behalf of the suffering and 
tempted.” 

Persis took Josie from the court-room, and seeing that 
the girl was scarcely able to stand she signalled a car- 
riage and took her to Gardner Street. Jim Bowles was 
then dispatched to Mrs. Bell’s boarding-house for Josie’s 
small luggage, with word that she was with Miss Thrale 
and would remain under her care. Persis delivered Josie 
to Mrs. Gayley and, sending word to her faithful cook to 
give her luncheon as soon as possible, she went to her 
room to lay aside the dress which had been assumed for 
the Club meeting and take instead the nurse's garb, to 
make her delayed rounds. Presently in came Miss Re- 
becca. 

“I was so sorry you were not there, Persis, it was 
such a fine meeting !” She walked up to the bed and 
spread out and carefully surveyed the dress w'hich Persis 
had thrown there. She was justly proud of it : it came 
from her own work-room, and Miss Rebecca's establish- 
ment was now turning out some very fine work and very 
skilled workers. “To my mind, Persis, there was not a 
dress there handsomer than this one. You should have 


LED INTO HOPE. 


291 


been there to show it, as a sample of what my girls can 
do ! However, without it, I got Ruth Hamlin a place at 
eight dollars a week. Wont that make her happy ! Tell 
me what you did this morning.” 

Persis finished buttoning her gray serge gown, gave a 
glance into the depths of her bag to see if it were pro- 
vided with all necessaries, then seated herself to await 
her luncheon, and meantime told the story of the morn- 
ing. “I have many times realized the expediency of 
retaining my place among my old friends, and in my 
usual station in social life,” she said. “I think half the 
efficiency of my work, its breadth, its vigor, are due to 
the friends and interest and funds and suggestions I 
have gained in that way. I felt it more than ever to-day. 
My seemingly chance meeting at a party with Judge 
Thwait has been probably the means of saving one more 
woman to society. ” 

*‘If you had given up your old friends, your early 
associations, your social life, Persis,” cried Miss Rebecca 
with vehemence, “you would have been flying in the 
face of Providence ! Your place in life was ordained by 
God, and he gave you all its advantages as means of 
success in this work. Oh, here is your lunch ; while 
you eat it let me tell you that the Club selected you to 
go to the Central Court to-morrow to watch over the 
most shameless, terrible case of oppression of a woman 
that has ever been known ! It makes my blood run cold 
to think of it !” 

“ You very nearly frighten me. Cousin Rebecca.” 

“The Club heard of this by accident — no, in God’s 


292 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


providence — only last week. They have secured for the 
poor wronged creature a lawyer and the case will come 
up to-morrow morning, and you are to be there, Persis, 
and bring the whole strength of the Club, in its social, 
friendly, helpful work, to shelter and comfort this victim 
of brutality.” 

*‘But, Cousin Rebecca, tell me: what was the bru- 
tality?” said Persis, who had found that sometimes 
Miss North’s heroics were greater than the occasion re- 
quired. 

“She has been in prison, in a common prison, with 
the lowest of criminals, taken there too in the Black 
Maria, with thieves and drunken negro women — think of 
that ! — and kept in prison three long months.” 

“Who is she?” demanded Persis. 

“Miss Crane — a governess, thirty years old. Oh, 
the outrage of it, Persis ; my blood boils to think of it. 
I know I shall not be able to eat nor sleep until the 
affair is over ! There were three splendid speeches, and 
some of the ladies just sat and cried to think how terri- 
ble it was ! Oh, if we had known it at the very first ! 
If three months ago we had only heard ! Persis, why 
are such cruelties allowed ?” 

“For what crime was she imprisoned?” 

“For the crime of innocence. Innocence and pov- 
erty !” cried Miss Rebecca, quoting impressively from 
one of the speeches. “Isn’t it the law to believe 
people innocent until they are proved to be guilty? 
This girl has been treated as guilty until she can be 
proved to be innocent ! There is not the shadow of 


LED INTO HOPE. 


293 


a doubt that she is innocent ; yet she has lain impri- 
soned under a false charge for three months, her rep- 
utation and health ruined, her means of livelihood 
destroyed. '' 

‘ ‘ What was the accusation ?” 

Theft,” said Miss Rebecca scornfully. 


294 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE CRIME OF INNOCENCE. 

“ The wounds I might have healed, 

The human sorrow and smart ! 

And yet it was never in my soul 
To play so ill a part ; 

But evil is wrought by want of thought, 

As well as want of heart.” 

It is a common fiction that the law holds every man 
innocent until he is proved to be guilty. As a matter of 
fact, too often, the person is treated as guilty until he is 
proved to be innocent. Even in this late 19th century 
our boasted code needs some amending. For instance, 
theft being punishable with imprisonment, a person 
charged with theft may lie in prison and await trial until 
he has perhaps been imprisoned for as much time as 
sentence would have covered had he been proven guilty. 
Such time is subtracted from a sentence ; but suppose the 
verdict is “Not guilty !’' A stranger, friendless or poor, 
accused of theft, unable on account of lack of means or 
acquaintance to procure bail, is forthwith put into pris- 
on, and suffers all its horrors, possibly for months, while 
awaiting trial. This prisoner has the added tortures and 
shames of being carried to and from court-room and jail 
with the filthy and intolerable crowd of the lowest crim- 
inals, the chronic criminals, who daily fill the Black Ma- 
ria. During imprisonment, while an individual cell is 
granted at night, during the day the prisoner — whose guilt 


THE CRIME OF INNOCENCE. 295 

is still a matter of question — is compelled to share a sit- 
ting-room in common with the fifthy, blasphemous and 
vicious. During this period, of penalty before crime is 
proven, the prisoner is not given the good and sufficient 
diet which the law allows the proven guilty in the State 
Prison or Penitentiary, where meat, good air and quiet 
sleep, are supposed to be needful to the health of a 
prisoner. 

The food is tea and bread at night, coffee and bread in 
the morning, soup and bread at noon. The soup may 
be very poor ; the tea and coffee may not agree with the 
prisoner ; drunken shrieks, profanity, howls of fury, 
prevent peace, sleep, thinking, or praying time ; and 
after enduring all this penalty the prisoner may be proven 
not guilty, and walk forth — reputation blasted, business 
gone, and health ruined. No wonder that Miss Rebecca 
North became earnest and vigorous in expression when 
she heard that all these miseries had been heaped upon 
Louisa Crane, a governess, aged thirty, who had come to 
the city from a distant State, had no relations, and few 
acquaintances except the employer, a rich man, who 
accused her of theft, and had her put in prison to await 
trial, because a ring, value two hundred dollars, had 
disappeared. 

This was the story Cousin Rebecca finally told to Persis. 
The ring had been found in the writing-desk of the gov- 
erness. Three months Louisa Crane had awaited trial ; 
finally a day had been set, and a lawyer appointed for 
her by the benevolence of the Court ! Accusation had 
come to her toward the end of her quarter’s work, when 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


296 

the salary of the previous quarter had been expended, 
and the employer, even after the finding of the ring, 
had withheld earned salary until the case should be con- 
cluded. Miss Crane had not been able to retain a law- 
yer, nor to buy for herself any food or comforts while in 
prison. The Women’s Protective Club, having heard of 
her case, had seen the lawyer who was assigned to her, 
and not only had found him zealous and able, but had 
received from him assurance that she would be proven 
innocent. 

Innocent, after all this penalty ! 

She had then been three months imprisoned for the 
Crime of Innocence ! 

It was to stand by this unhappy woman in her trial 
that Persis Thrale appeared that May morning in the 
Central Court, and awaited the coming of the prisoner. 

Miss Crane was not allowed to walk to the court- 
house, but was placed in the prison van with a white 
woman and a negress, both of whom had been convicted 
of infamous crimes and who were going into court to be 
sentenced. She would have cheerfully walked miles to 
have escaped such companionship, but she had no choice 
in this matter ; and so she rode in the Black Maria, 
while the boys in the street ran after the strangely-named 
vehicle and derided the miserable creatures inside. She 
was placed in a small room, barred off from the court- 
room, where she and her degraded associates waited to 
be summoned before the bench. It was near an entrance 
to the room, and every one who entered there looked at 
the prisoners through the iron grating of that pen. It 


THE CRIME OF INNOCENCE. 297 

was perhaps the worst of all the humiliations the accused 
woman had suffered. 

Her name was called at last, and her trial began. 
Her employer and his daughter told the story of the 
ring. She had suffered from so much injustice that she 
was beginning to expect to be convicted when her lawyer 
cross-questioned her pupil. Against her will he made 
the girl admit that the ring had fitted her finger loosely, 
and had several times slipped from her hand and been 
recovered. Little by little he drew from her unwilling 
lips admissions that she had sometimes visited the gover- 
ness’ room without her knowledge, and had often exam- 
ined the contents of her writing-desk and dressing-case ; 
and finally she acknowledged that she had been engaged 
in this meddlesome business an hour before she had 
missed the ring. The girl was mortified by these dis- 
closures, but the cross-questioning continued persistently, 
mercilessly, until she broke down and admitted that she 
might have lost it in her teacher’s drawer. In addressing 
the jury, the Judge remarked that he was surprised that 
the court’s time had been wasted by so flimsy a case, and 
he directed the jury to render a verdict of acquittal, 
which was promptly done. 

During all this process of law, Louisa Crane, over- 
whelmed by these last injustices and humiliations, dealt 
out to one against whom nothing had been proven, had 
sat with bent and covered face in unutterable anguish of 
spirit. She knew nothing of the strong and stately 
woman, a few years her senior, one of the fortunate ones 
of earth, who stood near her, with resolute face and 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


298 

pitying eyes. She heard, as in a dream, the testimony of 
witnesses and the finding of the court. 

Persis had, however, been recognized by the Judge, 
by several of the jurymen who were waiting about, and 
by a number of the lawyers. Her social standing and 
her work secured both acquaintances and influence, and 
as the judge finished charging the jury he bent down and 
whispered to a friend, '‘We shall hear from Miss Thrale 
about this wretched case. ” 

He heard. 

“May I say a word, I think a needed word, about 
this case Then she continued : “I know the case, as 
far as the Court is concerned, is ended, and I thank the 
Court for its courtesy in hearing me for one moment. I 
have only this to say : though for the court and for the 
accuser the case is ended, for Miss Crane, the accused, it 
can never be ended ; it is burned into her very soul. The 
city’s prisoner has had to travel a long and painful path 
before she found any protection, any consideration, any 
justice ; and yet in the end it is admitted by judge, jury, 
and even by her accuser, that there had never been • any 
evidence of guilt against her ! Her suflering has not 
ended yet. So long as she lifts her face to the daylight 
people who see her will remember how she looked in the 
fetid atmosphere of crime. So long as she lives the 
horror of her experience will haunt and influence her life. 
In the eye of the law the presumption of innocence may 
be a safeguard, but it must seem like a mockery to those 
who experience it. The foolishness of an ill-natured 
child, the hasty cruelty of a man who lacks nothing of 


THE CRIME OF INNOCENCE. 299 

earthly good but a sympathetic, considerate heart, have 
made this present wreck of what three months ago was a 
healthy, honored, useful woman.” 

She bent down to Miss Crane. ‘ ‘ Come. Y ou are free, 
and hereafter you and I will find a path to walk to- 
gether.” And together they left the court-room and 
entered the carriage that waited for Persis. 

When Persis had chosen her life work it had not oc- 
curred to her that it would ever carry her into the purlieus 
of courts and prisons, but just at this time courts and 
prisons seemed to claim much of her attention. At the 
moment of her return home, while her thoughts were ab- 
sorbed by Louisa Crane, Persis received intelligence of 
her appointment upon a committee who were to visit the 
women's prison the following morning. While she was 
reading this note Jim_ Bowles knocked at her door : 
‘‘ The clerk from Wex Brothers is here.” 

Persis asked her Cousin Rebecca to come to Miss 
Crane and then went to the elevator, where Jim and the 
‘ ‘ clerk from Wex Brothers ” were chatting. 

“Ah, Frank!” said Persis with her usual friendly 
smile, “always on hand where there is business?” 

When Persis first came to Gardner Street this Frank 
was a fourteen-years-old gamin, given to playing truant, 
a devotee of dime museums and cheap theatres, picking 
up precarious gains to obtain entrance to these beloved 
resorts. Persis and Harriet had promptly taken him in 
hand, invited him to the house, beguiled him to night 
school, slowly elevated his taste above the cheap theatre 
and dime museum, found him regular employment, Hter 


300 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


made him a member of the young men’s club, and the 
result was a bright, well informed, honest, industrious, 
polite young fellow — one more criminal saved, one more 
man gained for the State. 

Persis went up with Frank to the room vacated two 
days before by the Clarke sisters when they had removed 
to Cadogan street. It had been painted and papered the 
previous fall. Clean, bright, empty, it made Persis lonely 
to look at it, as she thought of her two friends — who yet 
were not far away. She must fill it up promptly. 

“ Frank, you are to do your best with this room and 
have it ready to-morrow noon ; that is twenty-four hours 
for you. Use your best taste in selecting a good ingrain 
carpet, and a set of simple, well-made ash furniture ; pick 
out a set of wash-stand china that will suit the carpet, and 
mind you carry the scheme of this paper in your mind, 
so that the carpet will not quarrel with that. Have a 
table-scarf to suit the carpet, and choose two or three 
things for that mantel-piece. Get three pots of bloom- 
ing flowers ; have dark shades for those windows, so that 
a nervous person can have darkness when it is wanted, 
but bring some dotted Swiss to Mrs. Gayley to make 
draperies. Add a pair of blankets, a white counterpane, 
and a pair of pillow-shams.” 

Frank was eagerly jotting down orders. He had 
been for some years working his way up with a great 
firm which traded in all manner of house furnishings and 
fittings, and this was his first order for the arranging of 
an entire room left to his own taste and judgment ; he 
longed to do his best. 


THE CRIME OF INNOCENCE. 


301 


* ‘ Then, " added Persis, ‘ ' get me those six books for 
the table, and by noon to-morrow have a room here where 
it will be a benediction to a tired soul to stay alone. ” 
“You’re always doing some good. Miss Thrale, and 
you make what you do help several folks at once ! Here 
you are providing foL somebody and giving me a great 
lift at the same time. I ’m obliged to you, indeed I am,” 
said Frank. 

As Persis and Frank came back into the hall Mrs. 
Gayley came from her room. “Miss Thrale, will you 
come and see Josie Martin ? She does n’t get any better ; 
I think she ’s worse. She lies in a kind of stupor this 
two hours. I don’t like it. ” 

Persis went to the hospital room to see Josie ; the 
crimson face, muttering lips, half-shut eyes, told the 
story to her experience. “ Brain fever, poor child ! Send 
for a doctor. Let me know when he comes ; ” and telling 
Mrs. Gayley what to do Persis went down stairs. Dorry 
was swinging the dinner bell and Persis was hungry ; so 
were Tommy, Dorry and Dora Agnes, who, freshly 
washed and combed, waited in the lower hall for their 
elders to go to dinner. Miss Rebecca appeared at the 
door of her room. 

“Miss Crane has had a warm bath, and I have sent 
for Dolly Murphy to come and shampoo her head — that 
is so resting and refreshing. I have made her drink a 
cup of bouillon, but I tell you, Persis” — and she shut 
the door and whispered — “ if I am not very much mis- 
taken, Louisa Crane is down with nervous prostration, 
and, if she ever gets over it, it will not be within a year.” 


302 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


“Is she in your room ? Well, Cousin Rebecca, cod- 
dle her to your heart’s content, and let her know that she 
is at home, and will be as long as she chooses to stay 
with us. Not coming to dinner ? ” 

“ I must see to making her comfortable and put her 
to bed. Why, Persis, she shivers and twitches like St. 
Vitus’ dance. She ’s a wreck. ” 

“No wonder,” said Persis, grimly; “her experience 
is a way modern justice has of wrecking people. Come, 
children, to dinner.” 

Jim Bowles was opening the front door. There was 
Mr. Cooper, and behind him a messenger boy with a 
letter for Persis. She asked Mr. Cooper down to dinner, 
and read the note while he was carving for her. Her face 
crimsoned, her eyes flashed. The note, with a few curt 
words, enclosed the long-delayed quarter’s salary paid to 
Louisa Crane by her employer and persecutor. The man 
was a half millionaire, but he had not offered one dime 
as money’s poor amends for ruined health and happiness 
and loss of employment. 

Miss Susan was explaining to Mr. Cooper the case of 
Louisa Crane. 

“See there !” cried Persis, laying the note and small 
check before him, as she took her plate. ‘ ‘ I feel a most 
vehement desire for vengeance. Something ought to be 
done !” 

Mr. Cooper looked at the two bits of paper. “The 
scoundrel !” he said ; “he is not glad, but mad, that his 
accusation has been proven unjust. Let me have those 
two documents. Miss Persis, and I will see if I cannot 


THE CRIME OF INNOCENCE. 


303 


bring him to some kind of terms. Money can never 
make up to this woman for what she has suffered, but it 
may be a comfort to her to feel that she has five or six 
hundred of her own, and is not wholly dependent upon 
even the most willing strangers.” 

* ‘ How will you do it ?” asked Miss Susan, eagerly. 

“The old pillory is discarded,” said Mr. Cooper, 
“but there is the more efficient pillory of the daily press. 
I think this man would rather make Miss Crane com- 
pensation than have this story in ever}^ paper in the 
country. It is a very telling story ; it would spread like 
fire. There is that happy dearth of news just now that 
suggests a land at ease and quiet. ” 

After dinner there was the doctor to see about poor 
Josie ; Bessie Jay’s tears to dry with encouraging words 
about her friend’s restoration ; then a simple outfit to 
purchase for Louisa Crane, whose little possessions had 
entirely disappeared during her imprisonment. At even- 
ing Mr. Cooper came back, weary, as if from a field of 
strife, but bringing a letter of humble apology, five hun- 
dred dollars, the unfortunate writing-desk, and Miss 
Crane’s watch, which last had been received from the 
jail. “ I went to the lawyer that defended her, and then 
with him to the prosecutor, and here is the result. It is 
better than nothing. ” 

Persis sat by her front window to rest. This was the 
life that some of her friends had suggested might be 
monotonous I 


304 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 

“ In vain remorse and fear and hate 
Beat with bruised hands against a fate 
Whose bars of iron only move 
And open to the touch of love. 

He only feels his burdens fall 
Who, taught by suffering, pities all. 

Pray for us P* 

Prisons for women, officered by women only, super- 
intended and inspected by women, are among the methods 
grown out of the Prison Associations and extended stud- 
ies in penology of the latter half of the nineteenth century. 
To one of these prisons Persis was called to go with 
others on a visit of inspection. Even to her the sight of 
a thousand criminal women in prison dress — living, 
working, under prison rules — was a revelation. She had 
for years worked along the edges of the maelstrom of 
criminality, striving to rescue the hundreds that might 
be drawn into its seething depths. Here she realized in 
one fell vision the fearful aggregate of those whom no 
eye had pitied, no strong hand had saved. To her it 
was a terrible study, nerving her to new efforts to rescue 
the imperilled and falling ; giving new views of what the 
dangers were, and of the long, long chain of events 
which result in the crime-records of to-day. 

“To think,” she said to one of the committee, as 


THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 


305 


together they stood in the great ward where the prisoners 
were first received from the officers of the police, who 
brought them after sentence by the courts, “only to 
think, if to each one of these thousand women, in child- 
hood, strong protecting help and tender care and guar- 
dianship had come, they would have been among the 
world’s useful ones to-day. There were people enough, 
philanthropists, Christians enough, to rescue all, if the 
burden of the errand had lain upon their hearts. What 
a fearful exhibition this is of missed opportunities ! If 
only these had been saved as children ! If only the chil- 
dren of to-day can be kept from such a life-story !” 

“You will need to make over the mothers first, per- 
haps the grandmothers,” said the young doctor of the 
prison, who was in waiting ; “and the making over of 
the mothers — that is the problem.” 

“At least, in the children of to-day,” said Persis, “we 
could make over the mothers and grandmothers of the 
coming years. It does not take long for one generation 
to grow up and others to come. Are these chiefly the 
children of criminals?” and she thought of Josie, so 
thankful that Josie had been rescued from coming here : 
and of Louisa Crane, thankful that her innocence had 
been established. 

“Many of them are daughters of criminals. Some 
of them are starting the pedigree of evil on their own ac- 
count. I see entering by that door several old offenders. 
Come down there with me, and very many of the ques- 
tions rising in your mind will be answered by what you 
see and hear,” said the deputy. 

20 


New Samaritan. 


3o6 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


The deputy matron with the clerk by her side stood 
to receive another file of prisoners. The last one in the 
line was a' young girl. 

“ Here's Clara again ! " cried the deputy. 

“ Dear me, Clara, will you never be reformed?” 

“Not much,” said Clara, setting her arms akimbo. 

“ Here's the fifth time she has been sent in here, on 
sentences from six months to a year; and she's only 
twenty-one now,” said the police officer. 

“Twenty-one ! she must have been an infant in arms 
when she first came,” said the assistant doctor, who was 
“new” in the reformatory. 

“She was in her fifteenth year,” said the matron. 

“Came in as drunk and incorrigible, and had trem- 
bles,” volunteered Clara, whose dissipated life had not 
robbed her of some prettiness, whose dirty hands were 
small and shapely, and whose uncombed hair was long 
and fine. “You might well say ‘an infant in arms,"' 
she said turning to the young doctor. ‘ ‘ I was born in 
the county jail, and my mother served a six years' sentence 
here, and went out three months after I came in first ; 
did n't she, matron ? ” 

The matron admitted the facts. 

“One of the reg'lar bad ones; wasn’t she! Full of 
tricks, and always in a fight. Wore your life out of you 
with her capers ; did n’t she, now ? I heard you say as 
much to the superintendent. Did n’t I, now ? ” 

Again the matron nodded. 

“And you’re surprised at my being here, doctor! 
Where else would you expect me to be ? I reckon your 


THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 307 

mammy and your chance in life was precious different. " 

The young doctor granted the difference. She was 
the child of a gracious mother, reared in a refined Chris- 
tian home, graduate of a State university and of a medical 
school. 

But what had been done at all for this child of the 
prison and the criminal ? 

‘ ‘ Where is your father .? ” the doctor asked Clara. 

The girl laughed hardly. 

“Never see him. Don’t know who he was. Fathers 
don’t count much for such as we.” 

“He may have counted for a good deal in your 
heredity. ” 

And what ’s heredity ? Something to drink ? I say, 
now, matron, do you feed us slops for tea same as ever ? 
Can’t you give me a good stiff cup, would bear up a po- 
tato, if I behave real peaceable ? ” 

“No,” said the matron shortly. She was indignant 
at Clara’s return ; it meant a world of trouble to her. 

“Then I’ll sing — loud — my loudest ! Split your 
ears ! ” 

“Then you ’ll be put in the dungeon.” 

“Then I ’ll kick and yell till I ’m tired. You ’ll have 
to take me out some time, and then I’ll be just awful.” 

“Couldn’t you turn over a new leaf and be good, 
just for a change, Clara, and to^ee how it would seem ?” 
said the deputy. 

“ How ’d I do it ? I never had any examples. Shall 
I copy after her, or you, or that one ? ” indicating with 
her finger the various officers standing near, and striking 


3o8 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


their pose in apt mimicry. “ Dress me up like ’em and 
give me their innings, and maybe I will. ” 

Environment counts for so much,” said the doctor. 

“What’s environment? Something to eat or to 
wear ?” 

“If you took girls like Clara, dressed them in ele- 
gant clothes, and set them in a palace, they would re- 
duce it to a slum in a week,” said the matron with con- 
viction. 

“Why not?” demanded Clara. “Isn’t the slum all 
we know about? What else would we pattern after? 
Do we know nice people ? Have we been learned man- 
ners ? Do I know how to play a piano, or read a book, 
or work lace ? How do you know but I ’d have been as 
nice as other folks if I ’d had half a chance !” 

“Come,” said the matron, “it’s your turn now to 
get your bath and your clothes. ” 

“Oh, I know, and all the rest of it — locked up, 
with nothing to do but sit on a straw bed. ” 

“Because you wont do anything, Clara. I’d give 
you sewing or ripping or knitting, if you would do it.” 

“ If I could, you mean. Who ever taught me ?” 

“ I ’ve spent hours trying to teach you.” 

“Did my mother want to learn before me? All 
right ; but I ’ll sing. I ’ll split your ears ; and I ’ll call 
to all the other women in this corridor. Who ’s locked 
up here, anyhow ? Any of my pals ? ” 

“There it is,” said the matron, as Clara was marched 
off. “She’ll act like a fiend; and then will come the 
dungeon, and she ’ll try to starve herself or choke herself, 


the mothers of criminals. 309 

and she ’ll get over into the hospital, and she ’ll serve out 
her year without learning to iron a shirt or sew a decent 
seam, or learn one thing by which to earn a respectable 
living. And she does n’t want to earn it, either. Why, 
that girl served a six months’ sentence, and the day she 
left she said, ‘ Now, I ’m going to get as much whiskey 
as I can hold,’ and in three days she was back, raving — 
sentenced for a year. And she ’s only twenty-one. ” 

Nursed by a drunken mother and fed gin from her 
birth,” said the doctor ; ^‘all her veins filled with poison, 
her inheritance unchained appetites. Back of these 
prodigies of vice lie the mothers of criminals. And who 
can say how well the money would have been invested 
that took Clara out of that criminal mother’s hands 
at her birth, and brought her up in quiet comfort, to 
habits of self-restraint, order, industry ? Ought not the 
State, ought not society to step in and insist that these 
children should be rescued from the slums, allowed to 
know what decency and peace are, and taught to read 
their Bibles and do honest work ?” 

** There are other mothers of criminals in higher 
stations than Clara’s, ” said the superintendent ; ' ‘ mothers 
who turn over the care of their children to servants ; 
give them no moral training, no immediate supervision ; 
the heredity of their children is often appetites as unre- 
strained as those of Clara’s mother, though with less 
coarse exhibitions. I know two lads, under twenty-one, 
who are practical outcasts from all decent society ; one 
dying of debauchery, the other phenomenally bad. And 
each of these lads inherits eighteen thousand a year 


310 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


and comes out of what is called a ‘ high family. ’ Balls, 
operas, late hours, cards, wine, days spent in idleness, 
rising at noonday to sit up until the next sunrise, no 
high ambitions, no useful occupations, no deep moral 
inspirations, worn out, fevered, nervous constitutions, 
these make mothers of criminals just as surely as the 
conditions of Clara’s mother : the pawnshop, the slum, 
the gin-bar, the jail, the street. The criminals resulting 
are perhaps less numerous in the first case, because the 
children are less in number and the personal influence 
of outsiders upon them may be better, and more numer- 
ous opportunities open by their environment for an 
escape to better things. ” 

‘'You find the mothers of criminals in the two ex- 
tremes of social life, ” said the matron. 

“How about the middle-class mothers?” asked the 
doctor. 

“I find mothers of criminals wherever there are 
mothers unconscious of their great calling, neglectful 
of their children, indifferent to their religious training, 
given to self-indulgence, blind to the moral grandeur 
of self-restraint. The necessity of personal labor, the 
pressure of general industry, the safeguards of education, 
may make the ill-reared child of the middle classes less 
likely to be a criminal. Take this reformatory. As 
years go on we shall find that, while some are really re- 
formed here, many will return again and again ; and the 
children of women who are and have been here will be 
coming to us. It will not be all heredity, not all en- 
vironment, not all the indifference of the State to infan- 


THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 3II 

cy, not all the neglect of society shown to its infant 
members, but all of these combined, in greater or less 
degree, produce criminals.” 

“Solomon then was right in saying, ‘Every wise 
woman buildeth her house, but the foolish plucketh it 
down with her hands, ’ ” said Persis. 

“You come nearer the mark than you know, when 
you say foolish. For statistics show that a terribly large 
per cent, of these mothers are ‘ foolish, ’ in the sense of 
being more or less idiotic ; not merely moral idiots by 
inheritance and environment but born feeble-minded ; 
and what of strong character, of enterprise, of moral 
discernment has the feeble-minded mother to confer 
upon her child ?” 

A look of despair and anguish crossed Persis Thral6’s 
face; then she brightened. “How could I endure the 
weighty thought of all this misery and wrong if I had 
not a Burden-bearer to whom to go, a Prayer-hearer, 
a Miracle-worker for the mighty load ! There may come 
some day an answer through the hearts and lips of God's 
people to the question. What is to be done for such as 
Clara?” 

“At present,” said the deputy, “there is no place 
for Clara but this, and this evidently merely restrains 
her for the time being, and works no real moral im- 
provement. ” 

“Some are improved, very much improved; re- 
formed,” said the superintendent, jealous for the credit of 
the institution. 

“ I am going back to my own small section of work,” 


3l2 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


said Persis, “to be more zealous than ever for the moth- 
ers and the little ones. It is a small section of the city in 
which I work, they are but few whom I can reach, but 
every one counts.” 

“That is true,” said the deputy. “If some one had 
saved Clara twenty years ago it would have saved me a 
world of trouble to-day. Do but hear her singing and 
shouting ! She bends all her energy to tormenting us. ” 

Those songs, those shouts, rang in Persis Thrale’s 
ears as she went back to Gardner Street to tell her story 
of Clara to her cousins and the Misses Stafford. 

Between the work of Persis and that of the Misses 
Stafford there was the closest harmony and interest. 
Every day the members of the families in those two 
houses on Gardner and Cadogan Streets met to counsel 
or to help each other. All problems which faced the 
Misses Stafford were referred to Persis or to Miss Rebec- 
ca, and whatever of new work was undertaken in Gard- 
ner Street the Misses Stafford were ready with hearty 
cooperation. The case of Josie and that of Louisa \ 
Crane had enlisted their fullest sympathy. 

“What can we do for them?” urged Miss Sara and 
Miss Eliza. 

‘ ‘ I can think of nothing at present, ” said Persis. 
“Josie has a fine constitution, and although it is weak- 
ened by anxiety, sorrow, and hard fare, she has still 
abundant vitality ; she will be about in a few weeks. As 
to Miss Crane, absolute quiet and safety, such as she has 
now, in a healthful, pretty room, and with those about 
her who treat her with tenderness and respect, will by 


THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 313 

degrees calm the nerves and soften the sharpness of her 
distress. ” 

‘*As soon as she and Josie can travel,” said Miss 
Sara, “ we want them taken out to our old home to stay 
for the summer. They could be in no more healthful, 
beautiful place ; and dear Mrs. Lane will be goodness 
itself to them. Miss Persis, cannot you take them there, 
and stay for the summer also ?” 

shall be glad to take them there ; I think by the 
first of June they may both be able to travel. Before 
that I must go down to see Serena, and take her a little 
youngster or two to play under her ‘ bombergilear ' trees. 
Serena is singing ‘ A charge to keep I have " louder than 
ever this season. She says she finds that each year the 
Lord gives her more comforts with the charge. When I 
take Josie and Miss Crane to your home I will stay for a 
day or two only ; I find that if I am to be efficient in my 
work 1 must take my vacations outside of its range, or 
at least so far outside that I have no feeling of responsi- 
bility, as I do where any of my own people are. I will 
tell you what I am now planning : I will send Miss 
Crane to your place for June and July, and meanwhile I 
will attend to affairs here. My cousins will have had 
their vacation, and so will Harriet and Mr. Cooper ; and 
Miss Lee, our kindergarten teacher, and the nurse who 
supplied my place last year, can come here, so that I 
can have two months, August and September, free. I 
want to take Louisa Crane and goto England, and spend 
those two months on the south coast. A sea trip, the 
entire change and the lovely south coast will cure her. 


314 


A NEW SAMARITAN. 


if anything will. I feel ready to make any effort in her 
behalf; I never felt such intense sympathy for any per- 
son as I do for her, when I think of her terrible experi- 
ences. ” 

“Is it harder to suffer justly or unjustly?’' asked 
Annie Clarke. 

‘ ‘ As far as the suffering is concerned, and setting the 
matter of your conscience aside,” spoke up Katherine, 
“I should think there would be some satisfaction in 
thinking you were getting only your deserts. But injus- 
tice itself is a cruel pain, if it is only the injustice of 
thought, or word, and not added to by the cruel act. ” 

“Your plan, Persis,” said Miss Rebecca with pride, 
“is just what one might expect of you ; you will do for 
Miss Crane as you did for Mrs. Hook — spend hundreds 
on her.” 

“ If it is necessary, and brings good returns, what bet- 
ter can be done with hundreds ?” said Persis indifferently. 

“You saved a grand good woman when you saved 
Mrs. Hook,” said Miss Eliza Stafford. 

“Do you know,” said Persis, “that though I have 
seen but little of Josie Martin, I believe she will be the 
very person for me to train for a nurse for your district ! 
I will ask your Mrs. Lane to give her opportunities to 
wait upon the sick, to care for the children and the aged, 
and Mrs. Lane will observe what aptitudes she has for 
such work. I think she will prove the right person. She 
has strong muscles, a good constitution, a pleasant face, 
a sweet voice, supple hands. That much I have 
noticed. ” 


THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 315 

Are you sure, " said Miss Sara Stafford nervously, 
‘^that as nurse she might not relapse into beer drinking? 
She might have temptation and opportunity more than 
in other occupation.” 

“ Dear Miss Sara, her beer drinking was the result of 
the unrecognized hunger of a hearty young creature 
shamefully underfed. Beef will be the antidote for beer. 
It is the required antidote in more cases than we know,” 
replied Persis. 

“Of course I should rely entirely on your judgment,” 
said Miss Stafford. “You have done a great work, and 
I cannot see any mistakes in it. ” 

“ Perhaps, ” said Persis with a merry laugh, “that is 
because my mistakes are so well covered up ! ” 

“You make few mistakes, Persis,” said Miss Rebecca. 
“ I might almost say none. I think it is because you do 
not rush wildly into new work, without thinking and 
praying over it. You take your work to God, and I am 
sure you are divinely guided. ” 

“I feel that it can be said to me, as to Israel in the 
wilderness, ‘Out of heaven he made thee to hear his 
voice, ’ ” said Persis earnestly. 

“That can be true of all who will ‘ wait to hear what 
the Lord my God shall speak, ' ” said Mr. Cooper. ‘ ‘ Who- 
ever waits upon the Lord shall renew his strength : he 
shall mount up on wings as eagles, he shall run and not 
be weary, he shall walk and not faint. ” 

“That walking was well put last,” said Harriet. “It 
is easier to run, on the spur of great excitement, than 
daily to persist in dutiful walking.” 


3i6 a new SAMARITAN. 

* ‘ That is true, ” said Mr. Cooper ; ‘ ‘ and as to the sup- 
plies of grace, both of ability and knowledge, we may re- 
ly upon them with assurance, if we look for them. Did 
not our Saviour look up and say, ‘ O righteous Father ' ? 
‘ Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right ? ’ ” 

“Yes, ” said Persis, “and when people prophesy of 
failure, and wonder that we do not fail, they leave out of 
the account that potent, ‘ Whereas, the Lord was there. ’ 
Mr. Pemberton, here, asks me if I do not sacrifice too 
much, or shall not weary in this work. If he considers 
Christian privilege he will realize that in any life, this as 
well as any, the child of God dwells ‘ under the springs 
of Pisgah. ’ ” 

“Your work, indeed, has a rich reward,” said Mr. 
Pemberton ; “but it seems to me that you resign much 
for it — a home, a family. ” 

“ Here is my home, here is my family.” 

“And when your fellow-workers fail you ? You have 
now lost the Misses Clarke.” 

‘ ‘ True. I emigrated them ! But countries grow by 
emigration as by immigration,” said Persis. “One 
goes out at the providential call ; another comes in to 
keep on the work. I feel sure that this Miss Crane can 
grow into the place that Katherine has left. Her terri- 
ble experiences will do their part to deepen and enlarge 
her sympathies. It is in sorrow’s garden we gather the 
herb called sympathy. Workers will always be raised up. 
My unbelief has, as the man said to Christ, been ‘ helped ’ 
or ‘healed.’ Experience has taught me that the Lord 
shall supply all our need. ‘ I have all and abound.' ” 


THE MOTHERS OF CRIMINALS. 


317 


true,’* said Mr. Pembroke again; “and yet 
there no doubt is a great sacrifice required, a sacrifice to 
which many would be unequal.” 

Persis leaned back and meditated for a time. 

“It is true,” she said, “I may have missed much 
that I should have enjoyed ; but why should my choice or 
sacrifice seem greater than that of hundreds who have 
gone to labor in far-off mission-fields, or have not 
counted their lives dear, nursing strangers in the midst of 
deadly epidemics ?” 

‘ ‘ The eclat of those undertakings, the feeling of hav- 
ing a large constituency back of the worker — a Board, a 
Committee, a great Church, or the on-looking of an 
aroused nation, are not there,” replied Mr. Pembroke. 
“You miss such a stimulus; you have gone a warfare 
at your own charges.” 

“Why ask from others what I could supply for my- 
self? 1 I may have missed much — ” she said again, medi- 
tatively, ‘ ‘ missed much — of pleasure — but, I have built 
for eternity ! This kind of life, no doubt, is not for all. 
It was for me ; for here God called me with an impera- 
tive voice. I do not regret. I rejoice, rather. I will not 
forecast. I work ; I wait ; and I know that at last I 
shall be satisfied.” 


THE END. 






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